


Weights (They Are Meant To Be Lifted)

by AlexisDevanne



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: All Human, Clueless!Danny, Happy Ending, IGotNoTimeForYourShit!Boyd, Insecure!Ethan, M/M, Mentions of attempted suicide, Observant!Lydia, Self Acceptance Piece, SelfServing!Aiden, Stiles being Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:58:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexisDevanne/pseuds/AlexisDevanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ethan and Aiden are the new transfer students. After what happened in their last school, Aiden warns Ethan against coming out of the closet. Ethan agrees at first… but then he meets Danny and suddenly following Aiden's warning no longer comes easily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weights (They Are Meant To Be Lifted)

**Author's Note:**

> I swear this was supposed to be a cute little 5k one-shot!! I have no idea how this multiplied into 37k words. I have no control of myself... 
> 
> Personally I blame Boyd for wanting to have a bigger role than a mere mention as a background character and my inability to deny him more visibility in fanfics. Un-beta'd.

Being the new kid at the school for most part is a terrifying yet exhilarating experience. Especially when you have to go through it alone. Luckily for Ethan, such wasn’t the case for him. You see he was a twin, and therefore he had a twin brother, Aiden, who would be there with him.

Ethan thought he should count himself lucky for that. And he had! Ethan had been nothing but excited about the prospect of starting somewhere new. That was until that morning happened. More specifically, until the conversation with his brother happened.

\--__

_“You can’t tell anyone that you’re gay,” was the first thing that came out of Aiden’s mouth that morning. No semblance of a preface whatsoever. Just directly to his demands._

_“It’s not liked I planned on shaking the hand of everyone I meet and introducing myself as Ethan the gay twin,” Ethan joked, an attempt at humor that wasn’t so well received._

_“I’m serious Ethan!” Aiden countered, getting in Ethan’s space and staring him down. “You got bullied and pushed around because you came out! And then I got bullied and pushed around because I’m your identical twin and those fuckers didn’t care to tell us apart! And what happened then huh Ethan? What happened then?”_

_Aiden backed Ethan into a corner but didn’t let him answer. Instead he kept bulldozing Ethan until he got to his point. “I had to fight your stupid fights for you and got expelled because I broke too many noses! And now we had to move to the middle of fucking nowhere just so we can start fresh. So you owe me this Ethan. DON’T ruin this for me again, got it?” Aiden asked, but Ethan nodding wasn’t enough. He needed to hear it. “Got it?!”_

_“I got it!” Ethan shot back, conceding yet not backing down from Aiden’s stare._

_Aiden nodded. “Good,” he said finally backing off. “As long as you understand it.” And because he got what he wanted, suddenly he was all smiles and easygoing. “Cheer up Eth,” he said ruffling Ethan’s hair and getting his hand slapped away for the effort. “Once you get to college you can unleash all the faggory you want. But for now, just remember that you share my face, okay?”_

_“Yeah,” Ethan muttered dejectedly. “Love you too.”_

\--__

Being at a new school meant that you’re basically given the chance to reinvent yourself. Nobody knew who you were, what you did, or why you left. It was a second chance at getting the high school experience right. You could literally be anyone you wanted to be and no one would be the wiser. 

Too bad it meant pretending to be everything he wasn’t for the next two years.

\---__

They arrived in motorcycles, both clad in leather jackets strutting through the school corridors side by side like douchebags. Of course this was Aiden’s idea. In his words, if they wanted to start at the top of the food chain they had to act like even that was beneath them. 

It worked. Everyone was staring.

Yet once they got their schedules they realized that they had different homerooms. Not only that but they only had Economics and Gym together. Ethan was taking AP classes for the remainder of his courses; Aiden wasn’t.

Of course Aiden wasn’t having it because he wanted to keep Ethan were he could see him, in case anyone gave them trouble. So he pressured Ethan into giving up one of his AP courses. In the end Ethan cave in to his brother and changed into Regular Chemistry. Now the twins took three classes together and Aiden was appeased.

\--__

The first day of homeroom of the year. Ethan knew what usually happened on this day and he was already dreading having to go through with it alone. Maybe that was why he walked so slowly to room 129B. But once he got there he realized his mistake. Because now it meant that he was going to walk in a room full of students with no way out of having to introduce himself in front of everyone.

So taking a deep breath, Ethan kept his chin high and opened the classroom door. The moment he stepped inside everyone stopped what they were doing in order to stare at him and Ethan froze. So much for walking in with an air of confidence.

Luckily for him the homeroom teacher was quick at managing the situation.

“You must be Ethan, right?” she asked signaling for Ethan to approach her desk, which he did. “Class, join me in welcoming a new student here to Beacon Hills, Ethan. Say hello everyone,” she said and was followed by a chorus of different versions of ‘Hello Ethan’. The teacher nodded with gusto and turned her attention to Ethan. “Now Ethan, why don’t you say a little something about yourself so the class can get to know you?”

Ethan gulped and faced the class, immediately fixing his eyes on the wall behind the students so that he wouldn’t have to look at any of them directly in the eye. Introductions were so much easier with his brother around because then everyone zeroed in on the fact that they were twins and then they would make a couple of jokes about beings twins and be on their way. But alone? Ethan didn’t now what to say.

“I ah,” and shit his voice cracked on the first word and he was already stammering. He felt beyond nervous without his brother; like if everybody could already see what he really was about and were already judging him for it. He wanted to get this over with so he said the first thing that popped into his mind. “I lift weights.”

Cue a chorus of giggles at his expense. Shit, could he sound any more like a meathead? ‘I lift weights’? Who the hell says that?

Ethan just tried for an awkward smile, trying not to bring attention to the fact that his cheeks were coloring in embarrassment. The teacher just nodded unamused and thanked him for his collaboration before requesting that he take one of the unoccupied chairs.

The teen didn’t need to be told that twice and marched to the unoccupied desk at the very back of the room, too embarrassed to look anyone in the eye as he walked to it.

Once seated the teacher began to hand-out the school syllabus while Ethan wanted nothing more than to hide out and stay unnoticed for the remainder of the day. Unfortunately he didn’t get his wish as the student sitting to his right turned on his seat to talk to him.

“I lift weights too,” he said with a chuckle and Ethan forced a small smile on his face because he didn’t want to seem disrespectful or like he was blowing the other off by not answering. But Ethan really had no idea how to respond to that. Thankfully the other student took it as his cue to continue. “Hey, you know that our school has a weight lifting center right? Maybe I’ll see you there sometime if you want to check it out.”

“Will do,” Ethan answered still avoiding looking directly at the other student. But when an outstretched hand enter his field of vision he had no choice but to look at the face of the person offering it. And when he did his heart skipped a beat.

“I’m Danny by the way,” said the student as he shook Ethan’s hand.

“Ethan,” Ethan replied slowly, his eyes taking every inch of the tan Hawaiian prince sitting next to him. _Prince?_ Aw damn it, Ethan face was already heating up. “N-Nice to meet you,” he stammered, surprising himself with how much he was already missing the warmth of Danny’s skin once the handshake ended.

“Likewise,” Danny replied with a dimpled smile. A dimpled smile that immediately told Ethan that he was in deep trouble because how the hell was he supposed to hide the fact that he was gay when he was already smitten with the first person he saw?

God please let Danny be straight. Ethan needed his hopes to be crushed as soon they possibly could.

\--__

Turned out, after comparing their schedules, that Danny took AP World History, AP English, Trigonometry and Gym with Ethan. That meant that in the classes he didn’t have with his twin brother, Ethan at least had someone he knew in all his other classes. Well except for Creative Writing, but he didn’t have to worry about that class until tomorrow.

After Homeroom and English, Ethan took Economics with his brother where they were officially introduced to the student body as twin brothers—which was familiar ground. Once they got their twin antics out of the way, they seemed to be the center of everyone’s attention. So far so good in the plan to make it to the top of the food chain.

All in all, Ethan thought he would be able to handle Beacon Hills high school. And if everyone was as nice as Danny had been then Ethan was optimistic that he might even enjoy it here. But then World History came and he was thrown out of the loop by none other than Stiles Stilinski.

“You!” Stiles exclaimed as he saw Danny standing in the doorway of their World History class. Ethan was of course next to Danny as they were talking to each other before being interrupted by the loud exclamation. 

“Shoot me,” Ethan heard Danny mutter under his breath as Stiles marched all the way toward Danny and jabbed a finger to his chest.

“You totally ditched me at the Jungle last week and then pretended not to know me when I called out to you from across the bar. What was that about?” he demanded.

“Must have not heard you,” Danny replied lamely.

Stiles scoffed. “But you definitely saw me. Dude how can you not, I was the only one with the school backpack!”

“And you wonder why I didn’t want to be seen with you. Stiles the Jungle is 21 and over, do you get that?” Danny asked annoyed and Stiles gaped, mouth opened as if offended.

“Well excuse me for wanting to say hello to a friend. If that embarrasses you then obviously our relationship isn’t at the level I thought we were. And here I thought we could start on a new leaf.”

“It’s _turn over a new leaf_ ,” Danny corrected.

“There’s just no pleasing you is there Danny-boy?” Stiles shot back before seemingly just noticing Ethan. “Hey you’re one of the twins from Economics, you’re new here right? The name’s Stiles,” he greeted cheerfully, apparently forgetting that he was pissed a second ago.

“Ethan,” Ethan answered, offering his hand for Stiles to shake, not really knowing what else to do.

“Pleasure,” Stiles answered before eyeing Danny and then leaning toward Ethan to whisper so Danny wouldn’t hear. “Be careful with that one, he may act all nice with everyone but he’s really the holder of a very sarcastic soul.” After he said that he sent an “I’m onto you” to Danny’s way before entering the classroom. Ethan didn’t know what to make of the whole ordeal.

“Sorry about him,” Danny apologized. “He’s usually less hyper on the first day of school.”

“It’s alright,” Ethan shrugged, “I thought he looked friendly,” he said, and because he couldn’t help to ask; “What’s the Jungle by the way, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Nah, it’s alright,” Danny waved off with a smile. “It’s this gay club I go to. But apparently Stiles has started frequenting it too for God knows what reason. I may have to find another club to go to now that I think about it.”

But Ethan couldn’t hear anything else past “gay club”. Did that meant that Danny was gay? What other reason would he have to go to one? And did that meant Stiles was gay too or was Danny just annoyed because Stiles knew about it and Danny wanted to keep the fact that he was gay a secret? But wait, Stiles made no implication about Danny’s orientation. It was Danny himself that outed himself with the mention of a gay club. Did that mean that Danny was out and everyone knew about it? Was Stiles bullying Danny right now? But then why would Stiles be so offended that Danny ditched him at the club?

So many questions and Ethan didn’t know how to answer any of them. How would Aiden react to this situation?

“Hey are you okay?” Danny asked. “You’re looking a little pale there.”

Ethan nodded robotically. “I’m fine,” Ethan replied, maybe a little too briskly. “I’ll just go find a seat now,” he stated brushing off whatever concern Danny made had had for him by escaping to the very back of the room and choosing a desk that was already surrounded by occupied seats.

He told himself that he wasn’t avoiding Danny.

\--__

Lunch was an unremarkable affair. Apparently Aiden was quick to make nice with the jocks and now they were both seating at their table. Ethan only busied himself with backing every exaggerated story Aiden made up about himself at their table. After all, high school was all about what you sold yourself to be. Might as well play the game.

…Danny was at their table too. But after the initial eye contact they didn’t say a word to each other. And somehow, maybe because of that, Ethan couldn’t really muster up enough enthusiasm for the rest of his classes.

Then day two happened.

\--__

Creative Writing was the first class of the day, and although Ethan got there early, all the desks at the back of the room where already taken. Biting in an annoyed groan Ethan sat at an open desk in the middle of the second row. He had been sitting in the back in all of his other classes for a reason. That reason being that he felt paranoid with having people sitting behind him because he always felt like they were judging him in some way. And these days Ethan avoided anything that made him feel uneasy.

He was just settling down when a loud voice startled him out from his paranoia. And it wasn’t even directed at him but at the guy sitting next to him.

“Boyd! Funny meeting you here,” exclaimed Stiles making his entry to the classroom and stopping in front of guy who probably was the Boyd in question. “Didn’t take you for a creative writing kind of guy. Hey I guess that means we’ll be classmates this year! How was summer?”

“My summer isn’t any of your business,” replied Boyd unenthusiastically as he leaned back on his chair and stared Stiles down. 

If Stiles was bothered by it he didn’t show it as he continued to babble on. “Well my summer was perfect, not that you asked. Finally got my dad to follow a healthy diet, fixed the taillights of my jeep and hey, I even went to my first comic con! No disguises though. They are either too expensive or needed to be sowed and I don’t have the money or patience for that. Hey is your mom good at sowing?” he asked, curious.

Boyd sighed and seemed to want to be anywhere else but there. “Stiles, for the last time. We weren’t friends last year and summer didn’t change that,” he stated sounding almost rehearsed as if he had explained that dozens of times before.

“Well not with that attitude,” Stiles scoffed before suddenly turning his gaze at Ethan, only now spotting him. The way Stiles instantly narrowed his eyes at him made Ethan reel back in his seat a little. “You,” Stiles muttered accusingly.

“Me?” Ethan muttered back feeling uncomfortable under Stiles scrutiny and suddenly wishing for him to focus back on Boyd instead. “What about me?”

Stiles’ hands tighten around the straps of his backpack as he approached Ethan’s desk. “You tripped me on the school halls this morning, what was that about?”

“I, no, I-I wouldn’t, it wasn’t me” Ethan stammered, not knowing how to respond.

Stiles scrunched his brow at that. “So it wasn’t you?” Stiles asked to verify and when Ethan shook his head in the negative Stiles followed it up with another question. “Then that means it was your brother. You, you wouldn’t happen to be Ethan, right?” and when Ethan nodded Stiles’ face showed extreme relief. “Thank God!” he exclaimed and at Ethan’s puzzled look he elaborated. “It’s just that for a second there I thought that Danny befriended another asshole. So really, thank you for not being another Jackson.”

“You’re welcome?” Ethan answer slightly confused on whom this Jackson guy was supposed to be. He wasn’t, however, confused about the fact that Stiles had just indirectly called Aiden an asshole. But then again if Aiden tripped him then Ethan couldn’t really defend him. Ethan will have to ask his brother about it later.

Luckily though, Stiles already seemed to be distracted by another person as he waved at someone in the back. “Hey Allison, thanks for saving me a seat!” he exclaimed, smiling and moving away from Ethan.

Ethan watched him go and then turned to face Boyd. “Is he always like this?” he asked, pointing at Stiles direction.

Boyd only gave Ethan a pitying look.

\--__

Ethan had a free period after lunch that day so because he was new and didn’t know what to do with himself he went to the school’s library. He figured he could get a head’s start in studying plus it provided a decent hiding spot. What he was hiding from he didn’t know, but he didn’t want to seat in any of the empty tables that were out in the open. So he walked through the bookshelves until he found a two-person table practically hidden from view.

“That’s my table,” a voice said from behind and Ethan turned around to see Boyd looking down at him.

Ethan swallowed, “Sorry, I didn’t know I had to reserve them. I’m new,” he apologized.

“You don’t,” Boyd stated as he dropped his bag and sat down. He took out his books and put on his headphones before sparing Ethan another look. “Are you gonna take a sit or are you going to stand there all day?”

Of course this behavior confused Ethan because he thought Boyd wanted to be left alone. “But I thought-” he started to say only to be cut off by Boyd’s unamused remark.

“It’s easier to ignore you when you’re sitting down than when you’re hovering,” he explained blankly before once again ignoring Ethan’s presence.

“Right,” Ethan conceded timidly before grabbing a seat for himself. He gave Boyd another precautionary glance before taking out his Trigonometry book and opening it to where today’s lesson was going to start.

After half an hour of this Ethan reflected on how this wasn’t all that bad. Yeah Boyd seemed a little standoffish yet Ethan quickly got the sense that if you didn’t bother him, Boyd wouldn’t bother you in return. And if that was all Ethan had to do to have permanent admission to this secluded spot then Ethan was pretty sure he could afford it.

Ethan was about to get back to his work when he heard a voice that he was quickly becoming familiar with. Because only Stiles could whisper so loudly that Ethan could hear it with perfect clarity even though there were at least three rows of bookshelves between them.

“Danny, wait, seriously man it is life and death here. I need to know!”

At the mention of Danny’s name Ethan’s ears perked up. He was still staring at his book for the sake of being inconspicuous but his full attention was on the conversation unfolding away from him.

“For the last time Stiles, I’m not qualified or interested in speaking on behalf of all gay men in the world to answer your question.” That voice definitely belonged to Danny. And although he sounded tired, his tone wasn’t exactly cold or unfriendly. Maybe they worked out whatever differences they had between them yesterday?

“Then what about just you?!” came Stiles rapid reply. “Come on Danny, help a brother out here. I’m like a dying withering cactus in the desert. Dehydrated and thirsty for rain that just will not come and you’re a sultan accompanied with a caravan of camels carrying an excess of water canteens and all I’m asking is for you to pour one of them on me Danny. Just one.”

Ethan was at a lost here because what could be so life or death for Stiles to make a big scene about it? In a library no less. And what did Danny being gay have to do with anything?

He heard Danny sigh. “Okay, first of all, if you were a cactus you wouldn’t be dehydra-”

“Oh my god Danny just answer the question, do you find me attractive or not?!” Stiles exclaimed interrupting whatever Danny had been about to say.

Ethan immediately held his breath not believing what he just heard. He never been more panicked about hearing a response and he wasn’t even the one in the spotlight. And by the way he heard books falling he knew he wasn’t the only one in the library to hear Stiles’ exclamation.

But then the bell rang signaling a change of period and all Ethan could hear was Danny saying that he needed to go to class and suggesting Stiles to do the same. Ethan waited to see if he could hear anything else and was startled by Boyd’s quiet chuckle.

“That Stilinski is a weird ass fuck,” Boyd commented and Ethan flushed red when he realized that Boyd had probably been watching him eavesdrop the entire time. However he only sounded sympathizing as he said; “You’ll learn to tune him out, eventually.”

Ethan stared at the direction he thought Danny and Stiles had been before daring to look back at Boyd. “You… don’t seem like you’ve tuned him out,” he said, making an observation.

Boyd only shook his head. “Not all of us can be so fortunate.”

Ethan nodded as he began to pack his books. Boyd didn’t seem to be in much hurry as he stayed perfectly still where he was. After closing his backpack and standing up, Ethan seemed to be second-guessing himself before slowly lowering himself back to his seat. Boyd watched without expression as Ethan tried to figure out a way to ask something. Yet Boyd being Boyd, he offered the other teen no prompts to help him along.

Eventually Ethan found the courage to ask Boyd what he wanted to ask, albeit not looking directly at him. “Y-You heard that conversation right? I mean it wasn’t exactly quiet, but you have your headphones so maybe you didn’t-”

“Never turned them on,” Boyd interjected, still looking terribly bored with where this conversation was going but at least he didn’t outright dismissed Ethan so that had to mean something, right? Either way Ethan gulped before continuing.

“Right, um, so, is it common knowledge that Danny is, you know, not straight or is that just Stiles bullying him?”

“Stiles, a bully?” Boyd scoffed, somehow terribly amused with the idea of it. “That punk-ass couldn’t even mess with a fly.”

Ethan nodded, unsure. “So that means that Danny…”

“Is gay?” Boyd finished for him, tsking it. “Everyone here and the mothers know that. Not exactly the world’s best kept secret. Why, does it bother you?” Boyd asked only slightly raising his eyebrows in question; like whatever the answer wouldn’t vex him in any way.

“What, no!” Ethan was quick to answer, Boyd’s eyebrows only raising a tad higher before seemingly shrugging the topic off. But Ethan wasn’t quite finished with it yet; and took courage in Boyd’s apparent indifference in the whole situation to dig further. “Still,” Ethan proceeded, licking his lips as he wondered how to phrase this. “Shouldn’t they keep that type of stuff private? What if other people hear? Don’t they care about being picked on or something?”

And maybe a little bit of Ethan’s stress slipped in this tone when asking that final question. Boyd just gave Ethan an assessing look before giving a one-shoulder shrug. “Hasn’t happened yet,” he stated; and before Ethan could ask any other question Boyd made a show of turning on his iPod. His dismissal couldn’t have been any clearer.

Still, it gave Ethan a lot to think about.

\--__

It wasn’t long before Ethan’s day became a routine. Aside of Creative Writing, he sat at the back in all his classes. Always besides Aiden in the classes he shared with him, and always besides one of Aiden’s friends in the other ones. It quickly became clear that Ethan didn’t really have any friends of his own that weren’t hamydowns from Aiden’s group. Friends that only talked about girls and sports and sex with girls. And worst of all was that Ethan had to pretend to be into all three subjects with the same gusto.

Danny didn’t talk about sex with girls. But then again Danny didn’t always seat at their table. Ethan once made the mistake of pointing it out during lunch.

“Why do you care?” asked Greenburg, stuffing his face with a ham sandwich.

Ethan felt Aiden’s eyes on him as he shrugged. “No reason, just curious.”

Heather, a cheerleader sitting at their table, nicely told Ethan that Danny was like a nomad that seats with a different click everyday because he’s nice and everybody likes him. Ethan smiled at her in thanks but then Greenburg had to butt in with an immature joke about Ethan wanting to chase Danny’s tail.

It was Aiden who responded to that by throwing his empty water bottle at Greenburg in a “joking” manner. “As if,” Aiden laughed but Ethan could tell it wasn’t genuine. “I know because Ethan is my kin and let me tell you, we are all about the ladies,” he boasted, wiggling his eyebrows at all the ladies at their table and earning himself a few giggles and a couple of friendly “watch it” from the boyfriends of the ones who weren’t single.

“Too bad Lydia doesn’t want you,” bantered Greenburg, referring to how with Aiden had been nonstop flirting with said redhead on Gym only to be brutally shutdown when he asked for her number.

“Tch” Aiden smirked. “That’s a work in process,” was all he gave.

Heather though, taking advantage of the topic, turned to Ethan and asked him if there was a girl he liked. Ethan just shook his head no but Heather didn’t quite believe him and insisted that he confessed. Even without looking Ethan could tell that his twin was staring him down, willing him to say something already. Feeling cornered and under the microscope, Ethan said the first female name that popped into his head.

“I kinda have a thing for Allison.”

“Argent?” questioned Greenburg, “Dude that’s McCall’s girl!” he whispered loudly but Heather giggled, saying how she now understood why Ethan didn’t want to mention it and commenting on how it generally sucked to want someone that’s already taken. Nevertheless she still insisted on knowing what Ethan liked about her and Ethan could literally remember nothing about Allison except the fact that she had brown hair. So he answered her hair.

This caused many of the guys at their table to laugh at his _so gay_ response. The girls on the table shushed them and expressed how it was nice to see a guy that wasn’t only interested in ass and boobs. Aiden however wasn’t laughing and Ethan had to try very hard not to squirm under his glare. Ethan mouthed “I’m trying,” to him. Aiden’s expression clearly read only one thing.

_Try harder._

\--_-

After that Ethan got into the habit of spending all his free time, including lunch, in the library. Aiden explained it away as Ethan just being a nerd. Guess in Aiden’s eyes being a nerd was better than being gay.

It was during one of those days where he was eating lunch in the library that he heard a horde of books hitting the ground near his table. Ethan pushed away from his table and leaned backward on his chair to see what the commotion was about and to his surprise he saw Danny trying to pick up what must have been a whole shelf of books that had fallen on the floor.

Ethan looked to every which side to see if anybody was making their way there but spotted no one. So he stood up and walked cautiously to where Danny was crouched down gathering the books. “Need a hand?” he asked, giving one final glace around to see if anyone else was coming. 

Danny looked up with what was a grateful expression until he saw who was offering. “Ethan,” he said giving the other a flat stare and Ethan was caught off guard by how cold his name sounded coming out of Danny’s mouth. It was like the temperature in the room dropped at least 20 degrees with that one word. Danny then shook his head like if deciding that Ethan wasn’t worth it and went back to picking up the books and putting them back on the shelf.

Ethan stood there frozen in place for about ten seconds before bending down to help anyways. Danny barely glanced at him as he picked up his pace in complete silence. They were down to their final dozen of books before Ethan found the courage to speak up. “Danny?” he called carefully, not wanting to stir up the antagonistic vibe coming off from the other teen. The air around Danny felt so much different than when they first met and for some reason it worried Ethan.

When Danny didn’t acknowledge him Ethan tried again, this time asking a question. “Are you mad at me?”

Danny only spared him a half glance before piking the final pair of books and shoving them in their place. Ethan stood up with him and Ethan at least got a reluctant “thanks for the help” for his troubles. But when Danny turned to leave Ethan automatically grabbed his arm to keep him there.

“Wait!” Ethan muttered hurriedly, trying to make eye contact with Danny but not achieving it. “I-I don’t get it, is something wrong?”

“You tell me,” Danny was quick to shoot back staring dryly at Ethan, making Ethan falter on his grip because of the level of hostility being sent his way. When Ethan couldn’t answer, Danny rolled his eyes and easily shook himself off of Ethan’s grip and walked out. Not bothering looking back once.

Ethan however just stood there quietly berating himself.

He should have expected it though. Yeah Ethan still greeted Danny in the hallways and such with a simple wave of a hand; but in the classes they took together Ethan always made it a point to look busy by engaging in conversation with other people just to have a reason to not speak with Danny. 

Guess he could only really keep it up for so long until Danny inevitably figured out that Ethan was actively ignoring him. It was bound to happen sooner or later, but Ethan was hoping it’d be much _much_ later. And now that it had finally happened Ethan didn’t know how to feel about it.

In a way he knew he should feel relieved. Ethan really couldn’t trust himself when he was around Danny and he was afraid his mask would slip up enough to give people a clue that he wasn’t all he said he was. And now that they were obviously no longer on speaking terms Ethan wouldn’t have to worry about a silly crush giving him a way.

But then why did it feel so wrong to just let it end like that? Ethan just didn’t know what he was supposed to do and he couldn’t really bring it up to Aiden either. It was times like this that Ethan wished he at least had one good friend he could rely on.

\--__

This was a bad idea. Correction, this was a _terrible_ idea and Ethan should turn back while he still had the chance. No possible good could come from this. And yet he still opened the glass door to the weights’ room.

School had ended two hours ago and only those who had clubs activities stayed afterhours. It took Ethan an hour and a half to gather enough courage to stop pretending he was studying in the library and take action. He spent the next 18 minutes trying to locate the aforementioned room and the following 12 minutes just mustering the valor to pull the door open.

When the musk scent of sweat hit him he almost bolted but was able to get a grip on his nerves by giving himself a small pep-talk. Chances were Danny wasn’t even here; Ethan had taken his sweet time getting here after all. Besides all Ethan really wanted to do was take a quick peek inside to see what the room looked like. He wasn’t planning on stumbling on anyone. At least no yet.

He still hadn’t figured out what he’d say the next time he encountered Danny but he wanted to make sure it was on his time. And staking out possible locations for their “completely-at-random-encounter” was part of the preparation process.

Alas, after standing by the door for about a minute and hearing nor seeing absolutely no one, Ethan finally took a step inside and closed the door behind him. Maybe he got lucky and no one was inside and all his nervous angst had been for nothing. He slowly made his trek inside and glanced at all the weight machines in the room. 

There wasn’t a whole lot. Some of the machines came in pairs so that one person wouldn’t have to wait on someone else’s to get their turn but overall it looked like an extended home gym. Small enough for the school to not bother with the A/C but large enough so it doesn’t feel like an intimate setting. Guess he shouldn’t have expected more considering Beacon High wasn’t all that big of a school to begin with.

To top it off there was no hall leading to the baths, meaning that one had to walk all the way to the gym locker room if they wanted to wash after exercising. No wonder it reeked so much in here.

Just as he was about to call it quits he saw the barbell with a 120lbs on it already set up. Thinking that he could probably lift that he laid down on the bench and grabbed the metal bar with both hands before lifting it up from the peg to try it out. 

Ethan figured he’d do a set of 20 before leaving but although the first ten came easy, he was struggling by the fourteenth. “Shit,” Ethan cursed when he felt his arms turning to jelly. He tried to place the bar back on the peg but his arms gave out on him and all he could do was hold off the weight from completely crushing him. That’s when he heard the door to the room swish open and desperately called out for help. 

“Shit!” he heard someone else say before another pair of hands helped lift he weight off of Ethan and placed it on the grip. Ethan immediately sat up to catch his breath, putting a hand on his chest as he did so. When he thought he could speak he turned around to thank whoever helped him only for the word to die in his mouth when he saw it was Danny.

“There’s a reason why you should always have someone spotting you, you know,” Danny said with his arms crossed once he saw that the attention was on him. Ethan, feeling like he was being chastised, turned his face away and got up from the bench.

“Sorry,” he muttered before giving in to the urge to flee and bypassing Danny toward the exit. 

He heard Danny mumbling behind him, “Yeah, run away from the gay kid. Not like you owe him a thank you or anything.”

That stopped Ethan on his tracks. “What?” he asked confused turning half circle toward Danny. The Hawaiian teen simply rolled his eyes before telling Ethan to forget it. And that for some inexplicable reason hurt Ethan. “I, I’m not a homophobe if that’s what you’re suggesting,” said Ethan, wounded by the accusation.

“Really now?” scoffed Danny, busying himself with adjusting the weights and basically refusing to give Ethan his full attention. “Could have fooled me, what with the way you stopped talking to me right after I hinted I batted for the same team and all.”

“No I, I,” Ethan started to defend but didn’t know what to say. How could he make his point without giving away the fact that he was gay as well? All he could do was fumble with his words. “It isn’t like that. I just, I just-”

“Forgot how to formulated words around people?” Danny retorted. “You didn’t seem to have that problem with anyone else in the classroom.”

“That wasn’t- No, you got it wrong- I didn’t-”

“So weren’t avoiding me like a plague? You weren’t about to run off just now the moment you saw it was me who entered the room?” Danny asked, and by the tone his voice carried it was obvious how unconvinced he was with Ethan’s general lack of a good defense.

“No- I mean yes but it’s, it’s not about that, I’m not a homophobe!”

“Then what is it about?” Danny asked, patiently staring Ethan down while trying to figure out what the other was about.

Ethan felt backed into a corner. His eyes darted around wildly as he tried to think of a way to explain his actions. Yes he avoided Danny. And yes it had everything to do with Danny being gay. But admitting to that would only make him sound like the world’s biggest douchebag and he didn’t want Danny to hate him. But what other reason could Ethan give him?

Then he heard Danny sigh. “Even if I wanted to believe you aren’t a homophobe, you at least got to admit to the fact that I clearly make you uncomfortable.”

But that was because Ethan liked him. Yet Ethan couldn’t admit to that either because that was the same as admitting he was gay. And admitting that Danny made him uncomfortable without giving a reason would only paint him as a homophobe, which was completely the wrong assertion in every sense of the word. 

Ethan didn’t even noticed he was having trouble breathing until he felt Danny’s hands on his shoulders shaking him out of whatever trance he had gotten himself into. “Hey are you okay?” asked Danny his voice sounding concerned. Ethan had to blink a couple of times before the blurry image of Danny gained some focus.

Shit, Ethan hadn’t even noticed that his eyes had watered.

“I, what happened?” Ethan asked one his world stopped spinning.

Danny shook his head, “You were hyperventilating,” he answered.

“Oh,” Ethan said back weakly, still sounding confused but not taking his gaze away from Danny’s. Danny must have realized that he was still holding to Ethan’s shoulders because he suddenly released the other teen and took a step back.

“Look,” Danny started, glancing away. “I’m sorry I put you on the spot like that. I shouldn’t have done that. I feel like an ass.” Danny was apologizing but for the life of him Ethan couldn’t figure out why. “But I think I get it now,” Danny said looking back at Ethan, and Ethan panicked.

“Get what?” he asked, his voice nearly inaudible.

“You’re from out of town,” Danny stated and Ethan nodded not knowing where the other was going with this. “Correct me if I’m wrong but you’re probably from a place that’s very different form here. Somewhere were you didn’t interact with many people like me. You’re just not used to it. Probably from the south, right?”

Ethan raised an eyebrow, not really understanding the logistics behind what Danny was spouting. Luckily for him Danny continued with his explanation.

“But now you’re here in Beacon Hills which I guess has to be one of the most liberals towns in the States and you’re obviously not used to it yet. So I guess I can somewhat understand how you aren’t conformable with certain aspects. I’m sorry if I judged you too quickly.”

“Oh,” Ethan muttered, starting to get it. Danny thought he came from some sheltered background. Probably with a highly religious upbringing too if the reference to the south was anything to go by. Danny thought that the reason Ethan was uncomfortable was because he had never faced homosexuality and simply didn’t know better.

That was so far from the truth it was ridiculous but at the same time it made a convenient cover to Ethan’s actions. Way better than Danny thinking he was a homophobe. And at least this way his secret would be safe. So better to just go along with it Ethan thought.

“I’m sorry if I made you think I was disgusted with you or something,” Ethan said, neither confirming or rejecting the theory and hopping Danny wouldn’t notice how he skirted around it. “I’m just…” Ethan continued but just couldn’t figure out what else to say to make things right. He wanted to show Danny that he was sincere in his apology but didn’t know where to go from there.

Danny saw the confliction in Ethan’s face and chuckled because he thought it was cute, not that he would tell Ethan about it. “So,” he said, trying to keep the silence for turning awkward. “You been here long? Because you either have the world’s best deodorant or you still haven’t broke a sweat,” he joked, the edges of his mouth turning upward just slightly.

Ethan smiled and shook his head. “I haven’t actually. I was only testing things out and was about to go on my way.”

“Great, then you can join me,” Danny exclaimed and when he saw Ethan’s startled expression he really did laugh, dimples and all. “Oh come on, it’ll only take an hour and this way I can show you how everything works. Believe me some of the machines are tricky to get started. But since we’re already here you can start by spotting me. What do you say?”

“I, ah,” Ethan looked at the direction of the door forlornly before shifting his eyes back to Danny. “I didn’t really bring any gym clothes,” he excused; and really, he was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved sweater. Hardly clothes you exercise in.

“No problem,” Danny shrugged as he tried to persuade Ethan to stay. “You can just do it shirtless. I’ll remove mine if it makes you more confortable.”

“N-No, that’s okay. Not necessary.” Ethan stammered out. He wanted to avoid a public erection if he could. “I’ll spot you!” he declared, moving quickly to stand behind the bench so he could try to hide the blush that was spreading on most of his face.

He hated Danny for grinning at his obvious distress. “Keep that up and I’ll leave you all by yourself,” Ethan warned to make him stop. Danny only chuckled at that but promised to behave all the same.

…It worried Ethan that hearing Danny laugh made him feel so warm inside.

\--__

Danny liked to smile a lot. That’s what was on Ethan’s mind the rest of the day. And Ethan couldn’t blame Danny for it for he indeed had a nice smile—a contagious one at that. One that made Ethan’s cheeks hurt from smiling back the whole time he spent with Danny.

Ethan could easily say that was the best day he had in a very long while. His spirits were raised because even though he knew he wasn’t allowed to pursue anything with Danny, he now knew that that didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends. And having any excuse to be next to Danny was better than nothing.

That is until night came along and Aiden arrived home while Ethan was microwaving himself some dinner.

“So,” Aiden started, dropping his bag pack beside the wall next to the door in favor of crossing his arms over his chest as he scrutinized Ethan. “Someone asked me about me and Danny spotting each other at school today. It was news to me seeing as I don’t remember doing such a thing.” He stated, following it with a humorless chuckle. “Care to explain?”

“Explain what?” Ethan retorted, keeping his eyes trained on the microwave and not meeting Aiden’s own. “I was just weight lifting. You know I do that.”

“But with the only well-known outed kid in school?!” Aiden said, clearly exasperated. “Ethan you should know better, that’s how rumors start!”

Ethan shrugged. “I didn’t do anything,” he defended. “And besides, everyone likes Danny.”

“I don’t care!” Aiden shouted, moving to crowd Ethan’s space as he made his point. “Just because they like Danny doesn’t mean they’re gonna like you! For now on I don’t ever want to hear that you’re around Danny again. _Specially_ if it’s just the two of you alone!”

Even with Aiden practically breathing down his neck, Ethan still refused to make eye contact with his twin. “That’s kinda hard considering that he’s in most of my AP classes. Plus he’s my friend,” he muttered weakly.

“Then make other friends!” Aiden exclaimed, grabbing both of Ethan’s shoulders and forcing his brother to look at him.

“I have other friends!” Ethan countered glaring back at Aiden.

“Yeah the freaking school loner!” Aiden snapped back referring to Boyd. “At the rate you’re going it’s like you _want_ to be the school pariah!” Aiden yelled leaving no doubt of how angry the subject made him. He looked like he was trying yet failing to regain his composure; and didn’t let Ethan speak when he opened his mouth. “NO, we’re not discussing this any further. Promise me that you won’t hang with Danny ever again.”

When Ethan didn’t immediately answer, Aiden really dug his fingers in Ethan’s shoulders making him wince in pain. “Promise me!”

“…”

“Ethan!”

“Alright, okay? I won’t.” Ethan conceded, shaking Aiden’s grip off him and taking a step back.

“Good,” Aiden stated, finally calming down. He smiled and placed what is supposed to be a comforting hand on Ethan’s right shoulder. “And sorry for giving you hell about this,” he apologized. “You know I’m only doing it because I care. I’m only looking out for you. Better you get hell from me than from someone else, right?”

Ethan could only sigh and stare at his shoes in utter defeat. “…Right.”

\--__

That night Ethan found that he had a hard time getting some restful sleep. Every time he closed his eyes he remembered the hell his life had been in his previous school. The beatings, the rope, the blood of someone else covering Aiden’s clothes. All because of Ethan being who he was.

He finally gave up on it and sat up on his bed. He glanced at Aiden with the corner of his eye and found his brother to be sound asleep in his own bed. Ethan couldn’t help but to be jealous of him. If only Ethan could turn off the day’s problems just as easily as his brother he would be much happier.

Seeing as Aiden had kicked the covers of his bed to the floor in his sleep, Ethan stood up and picked them back up. He gently laid the covers over Aiden to protect him from the cold and then just stood there watching his brother sleep.

He must have stayed in that position for over an hour reflecting on his situation before the lull of sleep started to catch up to him again. Shaking his head, Ethan threw one last apologetic glace at Aiden’s way before retreating back to his own bed.

Ethan knew that he owe his brother a lot. And for his sake alone Ethan shouldn’t even contemplate taking the risks he was thinking of taking. But Ethan couldn’t let fear rule him forever. Besides what Aiden didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. And it’s not like Ethan plans to forsake his promise of staying in the closet, so technically it should all be fine.

Still, Ethan hoped that Aiden would forgive him for being selfish this one time in his life. Because Ethan wasn’t about to give up his chance at some happiness in his school life. Even if it had to stay platonic.

\--__

The next day at school Ethan began to put his plan into motion, but first he had to make sure there would be no dents in it. And for that to happen he needed to be aware of all the variables. Meaning he had to get the information from Danny himself.

He waited until World History to make his move. Taking a seat next to Danny for the very first time since they met. Danny smiled at him as he sat down and Ethan decided to go for it now before his brain turned too mush.

“Hey Danny,” he greeted before going for the kill. “Besides the classes we take together, what other classes do you have?”

Danny raised an eyebrow at his curiosity but didn’t seem to mind answering at all. “Let’s see… I take French, AP Chemistry and Orchestra.” 

So in other words Danny didn’t take any classes with Aiden besides Gym. In a way that was reassuring to know. That meant that as long as Ethan avoided Danny during Gym, Aiden wouldn’t have a real reason to suspect Ethan. And since Ethan was no longer eating lunch at the cafeteria, he wouldn’t have to worry about Danny wanting to interact with him in front of Aiden. Huh, keeping his friendship with Danny under wraps might actually be easier than Ethan previously thought.

Ethan couldn’t help but to grin at the prospect. And it was only then that something about what Danny said caught his attention. “Wait, you take a music class? Does that mean you play an instrument?”

“A trumpet actually. And I’m pretty good at it if I say so myself,” Danny alleged sounding mighty proud of it. Ethan was impressed to say the least as he couldn’t even play the triangle right. “You should definitely come to one of our recitals,” Danny proposed as an afterthought. “If anything I promise to blow your mind.”

Ethan laughed. “Sure, I’d like that. But I’m keeping you to your word,” he joked. “You better blow me.”

And after saying that aloud Ethan realized how dirty it sounded. His eyes widen as he looked at Danny who was blushing slightly. Ethan quickly faced the desk instead. “I, fuck. I so didn’t mean it to come out that way,” he explained, blushing furiously.

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Danny dismissed. “If anything, it’s not like I’m completely opposed to the idea.”

And at that the person sitting in front of Danny raised his hands in exasperation. 

“Oh my god Danny what did I tell about propositioning sex to people?” Stiles questioned as he spun around to deadpan at Danny.

Danny rolled his eyes but recited it nonetheless. “Not to do it unless I’m willing to go through with it.”

“Exactly!” Stiles exclaimed turning his attention to Ethan. “Can you believe this guy?” he asked pointing at Danny with his thumb. “Last week he offered to take my virginity away and when I showed up to his house he had the nerve to act shocked and say that he was kidding.”

“I _was_ kidding Stiles,” was Danny muffled replied as he dragged a hand down his face. “And what are you doing listening to my conversations anyways?” he countered.

“Hey it’s not my fault that you chose to seat right behind me this year,” Stiles shot back. “You should already be well aware how hard it is for me to keep commentary locked to myself.”

Ethan, who was mostly forgotten about in this back and forth, couldn’t help being intrigued by this turn of events. “I-Is that so?” he asked, shifting his gaze between the two of them. And hey, you couldn’t fault Ethan for wanting to take any tangent that drove the conversation away from his previous blunder.

Danny only raised his hands in defeat, his expression turning apologetic as his turned to explain it to Ethan. “Well I thought it’d be a better compromise than having him whispering aloud for my attention during class from the other side of the room multiple times like he did last year. Excuse me if I didn’t want the whole classroom up in my business just because Stiles doesn’t know the first thing about being discreet.”

“Hey I resent that,” Stiles frowned at them before turning back on his seat. “I can _so_ be discreet,” he mumbled begrudgingly.

But from what Ethan had seen so far of Stiles, he was beginning to doubt that.

\--__

A few weeks have passed since then and Ethan could honestly say that he was quite content with the way things were going. Aiden hadn’t seemed to be clued in on the double-life Ethan was living yet. But the question was for how long would Ethan be able to keep it up?

Yeah, so far Aiden hadn’t questioned Ethan’s whereabouts when he wasn’t around, but that was just because Aiden spent most of his time trying to flirt with Lydia. What will Ethan do the odd day Lydia doesn’t show up at school because of a flu or something? All it would take was one day of Aiden being completely focused on him for Aiden to get suspicious.

Aiden might not be the sharpest tool in the shed but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how to pay attention. And Ethan didn’t particularly have much experience hiding things from Aiden. All it would take is one slip for the jig to be up. And to be fair, Ethan was kinda growing tired of having to play the part of a douche every time he hung with Aiden and his friends.

On the other hand there was his time with Danny. His friendship with the other teen has really flourishing and Ethan felt like he was floating on cloud nine every second they spent together. But just yesterday Danny had invited him to do something after school and Ethan floundered as he tried to come up with an excuse to turn him down.

Ethan knew that hanging out after school was what generally came with the territory of being friends. But he was afraid someone would spot them together and that word of it would reach Aiden’s ears. Ethan couldn’t risk that. Question was for how long could he keep turning down Danny’s invites before Danny started to question him for it?

And then there was Stiles…

“Hey Jackson 2.0, are you done with your essay yet?” Stiles asked throwing Ethan a conspiratorial smile. Ethan furrowed his brow, still not getting why Stiles insisted on calling him that, and answered with a yes. “Great!” Stiles exclaimed as he swapped his paper with Ethan’s. “Then you can proof-read mine while I read yours,” he said while standing up to head to his desk but not before throwing Ethan a guileful wink. “I warn you though, I can get a little free-spirited with the red ink so don’t get mad when I return your paper with excess commentary.”

Ethan could only deflate in his seat.

“I feel for you man,” commented Boyd from next to him sounding a little too amused at his pain for Ethan’s liking. Guess that’s what Ethan gets for choosing Creative Writing out of all the possible electives he could have chosen from.

Staring at the paper in his hands Ethan could only groan. “Who the hell writes a 15-page essay on lycanthropy?” he asked aloud, already dreading going through it.

“Could have been much worse,” Boyd supplied, sounding perfectly content with the 3-page essay he was asked to look into. Ethan glared at the papers in Boyd’s hand but requested him to elaborate because what could possibly be much worst?

Boyd offered Ethan a blank stare and provided how he had to proofread Stiles’ paper last time and it had to do with the history of circumcision. Ethan conceded defeat.

Stiles was definitely a little out there; a fact Boyd never missed a chance to point out. Not to mention that Stiles took some of the same classes he took with Danny and some of the same classes he took with Aiden. Therefore there was no doubt in Ethan’s mind that Stiles thought Ethan was twofaced and this 15-page essay was probably his way of giving Ethan hell for it.

Yet that wasn’t at all what bothered Ethan about him. Yeah, Ethan realized that he should be worried about Stiles uncovering him in front of either party but frankly that took a backseat to Ethan’s main problem with Stiles. 

The tricky part was that Ethan knew he shouldn’t let it affect him. Yet he couldn’t help himself from getting involved.

\--__

“What’s your history with Stiles exactly?” Ethan asked only twenty minutes into the study session with Danny. They were in the library, which was somewhat crowded, sitting in one of the open tables. 

Normally Ethan wouldn’t choose to be sitting so out in the open but something just felt wrong about inviting Danny to Boyd’s table. Boyd wasn’t the friendliest person to begin with but in a way he was Ethan’s friend even if they never really talked about anything. Hence Ethan wanted to respect their table.

But even though this wasn’t the best setting to be doing this, Ethan just couldn’t stop himself from asking the question that had been nagging at him ever since he decided to try making things work with Danny.

Understandably puzzled by the sudden interrogation, Danny put his pen down. By Ethan’s expectant stare Danny could tell that this wasn’t just a question at random. However this wasn’t really a topic Danny wanted to get into so instead he feigned ignorance. “What history?” he asked.

“Don’t give me that,” Ethan leered making Danny sigh. “Look, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’ll back-off if that’s what you want. But I’d appreciated if you didn’t lie to me so bluntly.”

“It’s not about that-”

“I mean you two don’t seem like friends but you never ignore each other either,” Ethan continued to ramble on. “Like ever actually. And for someone you claim to have no history with you sure seem to know a whole lot about each other—inside jokes and everything. It’s almost like you’re besties without actually having to be close to one another. And why are you looking at me like that right now? This isn’t funny.”

“S-Sorry,” Danny apologize, not quite succeeding at wiping the smirk off his face. And really, Ethan couldn’t phantom what Danny found so amusing about any of this. “It’s just that if I didn’t know better I’d think that you are jealous of Stiles.” And again the dimples returned.

“What?” Ethan squeaked, trying his best to scowl even though he was visibly flustered. “Not funny,” he mumbled. And no, he was not pouting.

Danny laughed. “Alright, I’ll spill. But only because I don’t want to leave you with the wrong idea about me and Stiles.” And then he shivered as if the idea of them together was terribly unappealing.

“Good,” Ethan nodded but then seemed to think better of it. “But it’s not like I’m pressuring you or anything,” he mumbled, trying to play it casual now.

That only earned him a chuckle from Danny as he leaned back on his chair to try to get more comfortable. His eyes turned to the upward left as he organized his thoughts before seemingly giving up on it and sighing. “Well I guess I should start by saying that no, Stiles and I are not ‘besties’ as you put it.”

Ethan face colored feeling embarrassed at his wording yet he narrowed his eyes at Danny, not liking how amused Danny seemed to be about Ethan’s mini interrogation.

“You see, Stiles is best friends with Scott McCall, the current captain of the lacrosse team,” Danny continued to explain, and Ethan vaguely remembered those two sitting together in Economy. “But lately it seems like Scott only has time to hang out with his other friend, Isaac Lahey.”

“Wait, Lahey?” Ethan interrupted, wondering why that name sounded so familiar. Then it hit him. “Yeah I think I know that guy. Last week he shoved me against my locker for no apparent reason. Not the most approachable guy if you ask me.”

Danny gave him a sympathetic smile at that. “Yeah… that’s probably because there’s a rumor going around that you’re sweet on Allison Argent, and everyone in this school knows that that’s Scott’s girl. Not too mention the stalker situation last year. So really that was probably Isaac’s version of a fair warning to back off. You shouldn’t take it personal.”

“Oh,” Ethan murmured faintly, getting lost in wondering which one of Aiden’s friends was spreading the rumor or if it was Aiden himself. “So you heard about that.”

“Me and basically everyone Greenburg has spoken too, sure.” Danny said with a shrug, unknowingly revealing the culprit to Ethan’s inner ponderings. And it was only now that Ethan realized why Danny haven’t cared much to entertain the _very on target_ idea that Ethan was jealous of Stiles. Danny had no reason to suspect the rumor so he probably believed it to be true.

“Still, Scott bro-ing it up with someone else doesn’t explain how you came into the picture,” Ethan stated, wanting to keep the conversation on course and away from possible inquires into his own love life.

“Normally it wouldn’t,” Danny conceded. “That is until you take into account that my bastard of a best friend moved away to London at the end on sophomore year,” Danny indicated sounding somewhat bitter about it. “It happened to coincide with Stiles’ fallout with Scott. My guess is that Stiles somehow took that as permission to bother me whenever Scott was busy. What you’ve been witnessing so far is the aftermath of that.”

“Huh,” Ethan hummed as he tried to make sense of it. It _did_ sound plausible but… “Wait, was your friend by any chance named Jackson?” And at Danny’s suspecting yet affirmative nod Ethan puffed; “So that’s why Stiles keeps calling me the updated version.”

“He does what now?”

“Jackson 2.0,” he clarified making Danny release a disbelieving huff at it. “He has been calling me that for the last two weeks now and for the longest time I couldn’t figure out why. Now I’m thinking he does it because he thinks you traded one douchy friend for another. No offense.”

“You mean one perfectly straight friend for another,” Danny corrected shaking his head in disbelief. “That Stiles… really. And hey, for what it’s worth I don’t think you’re a douche. Yeah I admit I assumed you were a jerk at first, but what’s past is past.”

“Uh, thanks, I guess,” Ethan replied staring at his hands feeling a tad uncomfortable with what were obviously supposed to be words of encouragement. However the fact that Ethan wasn’t straight and felt like a jerk for hiding it kinda made Danny’s words have the opposite effect. A fact that Danny must have picked up on because he asked Ethan if he was feeling alright.

“Yeah, fine,” Ethan answered a little too eagerly to be sincere but gave Danny no time to question him about it by jumping right back onto the main subject of their discussion. “So I take it that means that you and Stiles were never a—you know, a thing?” he asked giving Danny a sheepish grin.

Danny laughed and shook his head. “Far from it,” Danny specified. “As if anyone could come between Stiles and his crush on Lydia. I tell you, it would be cute if it weren’t borderline obsessive. Anyways that’s the gist of it so you can stop being jealous now,” he teased.

“Oh ha ha,” Ethan retorted begrudgingly but couldn’t stop the playful smile forming on his lips. “Not funny.”

And okay, _maybe_ Danny was on point when he joked about Ethan being a tad bit jealous of Stiles. But could you blame him? Danny was awesome and Ethan didn’t want to share him with anybody. Not that Danny was even his to share but that’s beside the point. What mattered was that Ethan no longer had any reason to feel threatened by Stiles—on a romantic aspect at least.

But what Ethan didn’t know then was that just because he was willing to put Stiles out of his mind, didn’t mean that he would actually get the chance to do so.

\--__

“Damn it I officially hate that fucking geek!!” Aiden barked as he aggressively threw his backpack against the opposite wall of the room before flopping face-first to his bed.

Ethan looked up from were he was doing his own homework on his bed to frown at his brother. “What’s this about?”

“That freaking Stilinski!” Aiden grumbled against his bed. “He made me look fucking stupid in front of _Lydia_ in class today. I want to murder him.”

“Wow there,” Ethan cautioned. “Let’s not get carried away here. I’m sure you’re just blowing things out of proportion.”

“Am not!” Aiden fussed, turning his head to glare at Ethan. “And I know he did it on purpose too.”

Ethan shrugged. “Well, maybe he’s paying you back from tripping him in the hallways.”

“Whose side are you on?” demanded Aiden as he propped himself up on his elbows—scowl still in place. “The little freak is just jealous because he knows Lydia is way more into me than she is into him.”

Ethan slowly nodded at that, considering it. Danny did mention that Stiles had been crushing on Lydia for a while now. “Well if that’s true then you have nothing to worry about. You’ll win in the end,” Ethan said trying to appease his brother.

Aiden scoffed, “Of course I will.” And then he grinned already picturing it. “But still, it wouldn’t hurt to ensure it.”

Somehow that made Ethan uneasy. He could see the gears in Aiden’s head turning and that made him feel apprehensive. Because he knew that look on Aiden face and it always required something out of Ethan. “Whatever it is you’re plotting I don’t want any part of it,” he warned.

“Oh come on, hear me out first,” Aiden pleaded as he sat up crossed-legged. “See I heard rumors that Stilinski might not be completely straight—something about him being friends with drag queens or whatever. And you’re gay, right? So I was thinking that maybe you could use your gay powers to like distract him or something; at least until I secure Lydia for myself so-”

“So what? Is okay for me to be gay when it benefits you but not when I might actually like somebody?” Ethan interrupted incredulously and maybe a tad angry as well. He just couldn’t believe what his brother was insinuating.

“No, no, no, you’ll not hearing me correctly,” Aiden interjected. “No one has to reveal to anyone that they are a faggot; that’s _not_ what I’m asking,” corrected Aiden, asking Ethan to clam down with a hand gesture. “All I’m saying is to somehow use your gay charm to grab Stiles interest long enough so that he doesn’t pay Lydia enough attention for me to move in. You don’t have to actually go out with him and no one has to know that you aren’t normal either.”

“So I’m not normal now?” rebuked Ethan, feeling even more dejected.

“Jesus Fucking Christ Ethan, can you quit getting so sensitive?! It’s _not_ about that! Fuck, just forget I said anything okay? It was a stupid idea anyways.”

“I _will_ ,” retorted Ethan, gluing his eyes back to his homework to let the other know that this conversation was over. He heard, more than saw, Aiden tsking while getting up to leave the room—slamming the door in his wake.

\--__

Next morning it was Aiden who apologized first for his behavior yesterday. He also apologized for getting his wording wrong and saying that Ethan wasn’t normal. Ethan forgave him of course because Aiden was his twin brother after all and they could never really stay mad at each other.

However once in Economics, Aiden was back to quietly suggesting that Ethan at least think about distracting Stilinski.

“I mean think about it,” muttered Aiden conspiratorially to Ethan while glaring at the back of Stiles’ head. “You already share classes with him. It should be fairly easy to befriend him and what’s better is that he isn’t popular so hardly anyone will pay attention to you talking to him. And he’s a freak like that loner you hang out with! See, he’s already your type.”

“Haha,” Ethan laughed sarcastically. “I thought the whole point of this was about me not coming out,” he bit out.

“And you won’t,” Aiden clarified. “All you have to do is indirectly hint that you might be interested. And if he so happens bite the bait then you immediately backpedal and out him as gay. Then his chances with Lydia will forever be ruined and I’ll be free to collect,” he stated already smirking at the outcome.

To Ethan ears it sounded like complete nonsense and he was quick to let his brother know it. “I’m not seducing Stilinski so you might as well drop it,” he declared but Aiden wasn’t giving up so easily.

“Then at least get close enough to him dig me some dirt I can use to get him to back off,” Aiden whispered harshly. “Come on, you _owe_ me this.”

When Ethan avoided eye contact Aiden let out a half-smirk as he leaned back on his desk. “Besides,” he started, confident in his sells-pitch. “You do this for me and I’ll overlook the fact that you’ve been talking to Danny behind my back.”

“How did-” Ethan started but stopped himself, already answering his own question. The look on Aiden’s face said it all. He _didn’t_ know but Ethan’s reaction all but confirmed it.

“You owe me,” was all Aiden mouthed as a reply.

\--__

Stumped. That was how Ethan felt. He even skipped his next class in favor of keeping his head buried under his arms, trying to hide from reality. That’s how Boyd found him during lunch break at his table.

Boyd did raised one eyebrow at the lack of food near Ethan’s vicinity but it was a wasted effort seeing as Ethan wasn’t even acknowledging him. So mentally shrugging it off—seeing as he couldn’t be bothered to do so physically—Boyd sat down and silently ate his lunch like he did every Thursday.

20 minutes later Boyd briefly flirted with the idea of asking if something was wrong—only to decide that it really wasn’t any of his business. Besides, he liked the quiet. Unfortunately for him not everyone was of the same presence of mind.

“Here,” said a feminine voice behind him as a hand painted with black nail polished invaded his vision. Boyd took the ticket being offered to him as the girl sat herself on top of the table while offering Boyd a sly smirk. “I managed to hustle two of those for tonight’s concert. You’re coming with, no discussion.”

Boyd rolled his eyes knowing very well that arguing would be pointless when it came. Erika combed her hair back in satisfaction before turning her head to the third person at the table. “Who’s he?”

At the question Boyd sighed because he was never all that big about introductions. “Ethan,” Boyd stated, not elaborating. Erika though was used to this so she moved on unperturbed to the follow-up question. When asking what was wrong with Ethan, Boyd said he didn’t know. When asked if he had even asked, all she received was a blank look. Figures.

“Boo!” Erika spooked as she slammed both her hands near Ethan’s head—effectively startling him into an upright position.

“The fuck?!” Ethan exhaled as he tried to get his breath under control. He stared wide-eyed at the blonde girl in the leather jacket, her grin too pleased to be innocent. She took Boyd’s apple from him and placed it in front of Ethan. “Eat,” was all she said as scooted herself off the table and walked out as if Ethan deserved no further explanation.

After a minute of watching her leave, Ethan turned his confused gaze toward Boyd silently asking him what that was all about.

“Girlfriend,” Boyd stated nonchalantly before taking his apple back and taking a big bite out of it.

Ethan’s eyebrows rose up in surprised at that confession. “ _You_ have a girlfriend?” he couldn’t help himself from asking, wanting confirmation from the supposed loner. But the stone cold stare he received from the other teen had Ethan quickly backtracking. “S-Sorry, of course you do. It’s just that I thought you didn’t like anybody, that’s all.”

“I don’t,” confirmed Boyd, taking another bite of his apple and chewing it slowly as to make his point.

“Right….” Ethan conceded, and after 10 seconds of awkward staring he grabbed his bag and got up. “I’ll uh, I’m going to go now. Um, later.”

\--__

Great, not only did Ethan not fit in with the jocks in school and the rest of Aiden’s popular crowd, but now he discovered that he didn’t fit in much with the school’s loner either. Talk about depressing. And now that he knew that Aiden was on him about Danny—who had to be the only person he felt confortable with—Ethan couldn’t risk being seen socializing with him anymore.

So when Gym came along Ethan faked a stomachache to get out of running track with the rest of the guys. He was sitting on the bleachers by his lonesome self, so lost in wondering when high school started to suck so much, that he didn’t notice the two students approaching him until one literally flattened himself next to him on the bleachers.

“Crap, Stiles are you okay? I didn’t mean to let go of you so abruptly,” fussed Scott while helping Stiles sit upright and generally looking like a worried mother gen in the process.

“Oh I’m fine, just dandy actually. Don’t mind the fact that you dropped me on my injured leg! Seriously dude!” sassed Stiles, and from his position Ethan could appreciate that Stiles apparently scrapped his knee pretty badly on the tracks. “Now go,” shooed Stiles trying to get Scott to stop fussing over him. “I’ll be fine here, just need to air it out a little.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to the nurse’s office? I’m sure the coach will let me if I ask,” questioned Scott, seemingly not wanting to leave his friend’s side until he knew he was well taken care off.

Stiles groaned that it was just a scratch and after some more back and forth Stiles was finally able to convince Scott that he wasn’t going to die from this and that Scott should get his ass back on the field before the coach came here to give another one of his asinine lectures.

Once Scott was gone Stiles turned his attention to Ethan, nudging him with an elbow to get his attention. “Looks like we’re bench buddies for the next 45 minutes,” he proclaimed like it was the best thing in the world. 

Ethan managed to not roll his eyes and instead pointed at Stiles’ wounded leg. “How’d you managed that?”

“Oh you know, gravity doesn’t always agree with me,” Stiles replied nonchalantly. “That and it probably wasn’t my brightest idea to suddenly bend down to tie my shoelaces when there was a multitude of people running behind me.”

“Right,” Ethan agreed and went back to staring forward at nothing in particular. Yet he felt Stiles still staring at him. Was Ethan supposed to keep the conversation going? “So, ah… I see you and McCall are back to being friends again,” Ethan voiced, that being the first thing that popped into his head.

“Well duh, it was bound to happen,” replied Stiles leaning back casually. “I mean once you get a dose of the Stiles you’re guaranteed to come asking for more eventually. There’s no rehab for me baby,” Stiles boasted with a grin. And it sounded so bogus that it got an involuntary chuckle out of Ethan.

“Sure, whatever you say man.”

“Fine, don’t believe it, see if I care,” Stiles argued while fanning his leg. “By the way you weren’t at World History today, why’s that?” he asked jumping from one subject to another.

Shit, of course Stiles of all people would notice that he skipped. “I uh, stomachache,” he excused pointing at his, well, stomach.

“Right, that,” Stiles nodded before scrunching his face in an interrogative fashion. “Hey now that you’re here there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a long time now. Well not really a long time, I mean I just thought about it yesterday but it’s definitely been festering in the back of my mind for some time now. Kinda like when you forget to take out the trash and it starts to smell up the place until you can’t stand it anymore and are forced to do something about it. Yet you stop to ask yourself why hasn’t the other person in the house done something about it either. You ask yourself why should _you_ be the one doing it? So you don’t. But then because you let the trash sit there for a couple of days more and-”

“Is there a point to this?” Ethan cut in rather rudely, interrupting what appeared to be an endless monologue.

Stiles went tightlipped immediately; eyes scrutinizing Ethan and making the twin feel uncomfortable again. Ethan flattened his hands against the bleachers ready to just up and leave when Stiles ultimately decided to open his mouth.

“Why don’t I ever see you during lunch?” Stiles finally asked.

“What?” Ethan probed back, settling himself back down and staring at the other with a puzzled look. 

Stiles repeated the question, adding how he even asked Danny about it today and the guy didn’t have a clue. “I only ever spot Aiden, who is an asshole by the way, not that you are particularly exempt, in the cafeteria. Hence my question, where do you go during lunch?” Stiles inquired, completely speeding past the fact that he indirectly called Ethan an asshole like it was an everyday thing.

Ethan narrowed his eyes. “Why do you care?” he asked somewhat defensively.

The other teen just gave a one-arm shrug. “I’m curious to a fault I guess. Can’t help it.”

“And if I tell you to get off?”

“I’d tell you that I already did. Twice today actually,” answered Stiles making Ethan scrunch his face in disgust because too much information. “So?” Stiles continued. “Are you going to keep being unnecessarily defensive about it or are you going to give in to the fact that if you don’t answer you’ll gonna have to live with the fact that you’ll see the question painted on my face haunting you for the rest of the school year?”

“How nice of you to give me choices,” Ethan retorted sarcastically to which Stiles only grin triumphantly in response. Ethan scoffed and shook his head but then got quiet, staring at the ground between his sneakers. He mentally sighed because on one hand at least someone was talking to him, yet on the other hand that someone was _Stiles_. But then again what right did Ethan have to be selective? “Nowhere,” finally he breathed out in defeat. 

“Huh, what was that? Sorry, didn’t catch that.”

“I said _nowhere_ ,” Ethan restated losing a little of his temper before dialing it back by inhaling and letting the air out. A little calmer now he elaborated. “I mean I used to go to the library instead but…” thinking about what transpired there barely an hour ago Ethan was beginning to wonder if he had ever really been welcomed there. “Not anymore,” he finished lamely.

“Huh,” Stiles said, working his jaw in a distracting fashion as he considered what Ethan said. Ethan however was busy feeling even more pathetic than he did before for voicing something like that out loud. He quickly decided that the whole situation was just too embarrassing to withstand and got up ready to leave. He did not want to stay a second later.

“Wait!” Stiles exclaimed getting up after Ethan but forgetting he had a sprained leg. “Shit,” he cursed, stumbling on his footing but Ethan turned around quickly enough to right him before he could cause himself any additional damage. “Thanks,” Stiles muttered standing up straight for himself and acting like he had everything under control. “Anyways, I was going to say that you should totally come eat with us tomorrow. We have seats available.”

Ethan looked a little stumped. “You’re inviting me to your table?”

“Yeah, sure,” Stiles replied with a grin. “But reservation only because as you know we are in high demand and hold to our rights of admission,” he explained.

“But I thought you just said you had seats available; how is that being in high demand?” Ethan couldn’t help himself from asking, still a little caught off guard by the invite.

“You’re concentrating on the wrong thing here man,” Stiles admonished crossing his arms over his chest. But when Ethan still didn’t look like he was going to give a proper answer soon Stiles sighed and sat back down. “Well I leave you to think about it but I’m expecting an answer come tomorrow so-”

“Alright,” Ethan assented cutting Stiles short again. Stiles looked up to him again and Ethan flushed a little. “I mean, sure. I’ll seat with you guys, if that’s alright with you,” Ethan continued to prattle, inwardly wanting to face-palm because _of course_ it was all right; otherwise Stiles wouldn’t have offered! But he was nervous and sometimes being nervous made him say stupid shit.

In reality Ethan didn’t know why he said yes so readily. He guessed the fact that excluding Danny—who he wasn’t supposed to be talking too in the first place—Ethan basically had no friends in school. And he wasn’t like Boyd who was obviously fine with being a loner. And heck even Boyd had someone! So even if Ethan didn’t enjoy Stiles’ company some of the time, Ethan guessed that in the end he was just tired of feeling lonely, unwelcomed and generally unwanted.

Alas he really was in no position to refuse anyone who extended him a hand in friendship. Maybe he did it to spite Boyd a little? Depressing thoughts really, but beggars can’t be choosers. And who knew, maybe Ethan would end up liking Stiles and his friends. It certainly couldn’t hurt to try.

“Great!” Stiles replied, stretching out his legs in front of him. “Also, another thing. You don’t happen to have a bandage on you by any chance do you? This looks like it might get infected if I leave it alone,” he said appraising his leg. “Maybe some triple antibiotic?” he asked with a hopeful countenance.

Ethan shook his head with a small laugh and pointed over his shoulder. “I’ll uh, go see what the nurse can give me,” he offered, slowly backing away. He gave one final glance to the field and caught Aiden giving him the thumps up. Ethan’s stomach instantly dropped, for real this time. 

“Good looking out dude!” Stiles exclaimed after him to which Ethan gave a slight wave in response—feeling sicker now for reasons unknown. 

\--__

Ethan really hadn’t put much thought to whom Stiles shared his lunch table with. In the earlier days when Ethan used to eat in the cafeteria he really hadn’t paid much attention to the people Stiles hung out with. But if he had to guess he’d say that Scott was the most likely candidate. Other than that Ethan drew a complete blank. So he really didn’t know what to expect when the lunch bell rang and Stiles started to hurriedly drag him to the cafeteria line. 

“Hey I forgot to ask,” Stiles started, only giving Ethan a side-glance. “The rumor about you and Allison isn’t true is it? Because I’d hate for things to get awkward before you even sit down.”

“Is not,” Ethan replied half wondering why it was easy to deny it so casually to Stiles when it felt literally impossible to set the record straight with Danny whose opinion was the only one that truly mattered to Ethan.

“Oh good, of course it’s bogus,” Stiles sounded relieved to hear it. “I’m so going to enjoy the packaged ‘I told you so’ that I’m going to deliver to Isaac later,” he muttered under his breath but Ethan still caught it. Apparently some people still had issues with him because of that small blunder on his part. Suddenly Ethan was beginning to rethink his choice of accepting Stiles’ invitation.

When they eventually got to their table Ethan was surprised to see the one and only Lydia Martin sitting there. Not only was she sitting there but she also was the only one at the table. No wonder Aiden wanted to take Stiles out of the equation so passionately. Apparently this wasn’t of common occurrence though because Stiles immediately questioned the whereabouts of Scott.

“Tch, do you even have to ask?” Lydia scoffed not looking away from her phone as she gestured to the empty seat beside her. Ethan didn’t get it but apparently Stiles did as he nodded in acquiescence.

“Ah, Allison,” Stiles said while taking a seat and reminiscing. “I remember a time when every question relating to Scott didn’t end in Allison. Those were some pretty fond memories I tell you. Now seem so far away,” he lamented but it was obvious he was only kidding.

Stiles signaled for Ethan to sit beside him and introduced him to Lydia.

“I know who he is,” replied Lydia sounding uninterested before seemingly spotting someone behind them and raising her hand to call him over. Ethan almost jumped off his seat when Danny plopped down at his other side.

“Hey guys,” Danny greeted with a dimple smile as he opened his bottle of water.

Stiles bent his body over the table to take an unobstructed glance at the newcomer. “Oh hey Danny-boy, fancy of you to join us. Any particular reason why you decided that today of all days would be the one that you grace us with your presence?”

Lydia however was the one to answer that. “Duh, I invited him. You didn’t actually think I would be seen seating alone with you losers without Scott or Allison did you? Danny is here to act as a buffer so the hierarchy doesn’t get disrupted,” she explained in a matter of fact way.

“Oh wow,” answered Stiles. “No offense taken.”

“Funny,” replied Lydia going back to her phone. “I don’t remember saying ‘no offense’.”

“Ouch,” Stiles winced overdramatically before shrugging it off. “Thank god then. For a minute there I feared that Danny came to hit on me. I didn’t want him to go through the embarrassment of having me reject his advances in public.”

Danny snorted at that. “Don’t flatter yourself Stiles. Not even in your dreams there’s a chance of that happening.”

“You wound me man,” Stiles responded before turning to Ethan. “See with what I have to deal with on the daily basis? I tell you, it truly saddens me how some people go through life living in complete denial of their feelings,” Stiles lamented. “But there’s a lesson here,” he pointed out. “Don’t go through life being a Danny Ethan my friend. Let love set you free!”

This time Danny did chuckle in amusement and even a smile threatened to break on Lydia’s face. “You’re so full of it Stiles,” said Danny shaking his head.

Stiles grinned. “What can I say, I aim to please.”

And it wasn’t until then that Ethan realized that they were all joking around with each other. He let out a small smile of his own then. It had been a while since he had put himself in this kind of environment so he was a little slow on the update. But maybe here he might be able to learn how not to be scare around others enough so that he could enjoy himself.

But then Isaac sat next to Lydia like a grumpy kid and leered at Ethan. “What’s he doing here?” he questioned.

“Hey, hey, hey, easy on the antagonism,” Stiles quickly jumped in. “I’ll have you know that I’ve already cleared up the Allison rumor and I can confirm that it’s just that, a rumor. Right Ethan?”

Ethan saw all eyes turned on him and gulped. “Y-Yeah, the story is fake. I mean, I just said it as a joke. It’s not true,” he stated, somewhat proud that he didn’t stammered much.

“Hmm,” said Lydia, interested enough to part her gaze from her phone. “That changes things,” she stated all enigmatically. There was a peculiar sparkle in her eyes as she studied Ethan that he wasn’t sure he trusted. Yet he didn’t get a chance to deliberate on it as yet another person joined their party.

Erika sat herself at the edge of the table, _on_ the table, next to Isaac. “Looky what I have here,” she teased as she pulled out what seemed to be a comic book out of her leather jacket.

“That’s a mint copy of the fabled The Amazing Spider-Man issue 121! I’m missing that one how did you get it?” reacted Stiles immediately reaching for it only for Erika to pull it away.

“Ah ah, not so fast. I never said this was for free,” taunted Erika, fanning herself with said comic book. Stiles eyes followed its every movement.

“Fine,” Stiles assented, “What do you want?”

“A trade,” Erika announced. “I recently bought myself a really provocative Catwoman outfit for this coming Halloween and I need someone to be my Batman. You in?”

Stiles wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Depends, how much leather are we talking about?” he asked, earning himself a wink from the blonde.

Ethan however was confused because those two were obviously flirting with each other. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue, except for one very important variable. “Aren’t you Boyd’s girlfriend?” he found himself asking—only realizing that he voiced the question aloud when Erika turned her steely gaze on him.

“Who’s the new virgin?” she asked while raking her nails on the table.

“Hey I take offense to that,” Stiles complained but it was Isaac who answered. “He’s _Ethan_ ,” he replied giving emphasis on the name as if it was supposed to mean anything to her.

“Oh hey you’re Boyd’s friend,” Erika acknowledged, recognition registering in her voice. But then her eyes narrowed as she studied his face. “You’re the twin of the asshole who grabbed my ass the other day,” she stated catching Ethan off guard with what to reply. But Erika wasn’t finished. “You should tell that fucker to wash his hands after he eats because he ruined my favorite skirt. My favorite white skirt that is.”

“Um, sorry?” Ethan apologized awkwardly. Seriously, what was one supposed to do in these kinds of situations?

“Yeah, whatever,” Erika dismissed while handing the comic book to Stiles and making sure that they had an agreement. Then before turning to leave she addressed Ethan one more time; this time with an air of curiosity. “You ride a motorcycle don’t you? What’s your license plate?” she asked.

“209DE,” Ethan replied a little confused by the question. “Why?”

“No reason,” Erika smirked, tapping Isaac on the shoulder and signaling for him to follow after her. “Just be sure to warn your dear brother that if he ever does it again I’m going to ruin something _he_ is fond of. Later!”

Danny waited until the leather-clad duo went away to comment. “Quite the reputation your brother got there,” Danny said clapping Ethan on the shoulder in a comforting manner and leaving his hand there. “Not that I’m taking a dig at him or anything but I imagine it can’t be easy sharing a face.”

“Yeah…” Ethan muttered dropping his shoulders. “I know that from experience,” he said gloomily but not for the reasons Danny was imagining. While Ethan was lost remembering a time where it was the other way around and sharing his face was what made Aiden’s life a living hell; Stiles got up and sat at the other side of Danny and bugged him into reviewing his new comic with him.

It was Lydia who shook Ethan out of his reverie by engaging him in _friendly_ conversation. “So Ethan,” she paused as if savoring the name for the very first time. “Tell me about yourself.”

“Huh?” muttered Ethan finally breaking out of his trance. At Lydia’s expectant stare Ethan went with what was slowly becoming his go-to answer. “I ah, lift weights?” he said, smiling awkwardly. But unlike the people at his homeroom, Lydia didn’t laugh. 

“Interesting…” Lydia said, tilting her head to the side and acquiring an inquisitive expression. “And how long exactly are you going to let them weight you down?”

The bell rang then and everyone stood up to leave for their respective classes. Lydia gave Ethan a knowing smile before filing out with the others.

Ethan stayed rooted on his seat.

He didn’t know how but Lydia was able to read his secret like an open book with just one exchange of words. She wasn’t fooled. She knew who he really was and was letting him know that she knew. And suddenly he wasn’t looking forward to doing this anymore.

\--__

They next day at lunch hour Ethan 86ed the cafeteria and found himself eating his lunch alone outside at the bleachers. He barely got two bites in before a voice spooked him from behind. “Damn, now I owe Lydia 10 bucks.”

“Jesus!” Ethan cursed almost dropping his lunch. Turning his head he saw that the culprit was no other than Stiles carrying his own lunch tray. “What are you doing here?”

“Losing a bet apparently,” replied Stiles as he plopped himself down next to Ethan. He saw the apprehensive glare Ethan was still giving him and decided to elaborate. “You see, for some reason Lydia was dead certain that you wouldn’t show up at lunch today. Granted, yesterday was untraditional—what with Scott and Allison going AWOL and Danny showing up—but if anything I thought that would make you feel more comfortable. So of course I called bull on Lydia because although she’s a very capable brain contained inside the finest specimen ever known to man she _had_ to be wrong. And well, this happened,” he finished, gesturing at the open field in front of then as to make his point.

“You shouldn’t have gambled then,” Ethan mumbled as he took another bite of his turkey sandwich.

Stiles gave him a side-glance as he removed the foil from his chicken wrap and huffed. “Lydia also thinks that you play ball for the same team, maybe I shouldn’t have contested that too.”

And as soon as he said that Ethan started choking on his food. He spilled his drink as he tried to reach for it while punching his chest with his other hand.

“Dude are you alright?” Stiles panicked, hands hovering over Ethan without knowing what to do with them. “I got to warn you that I’ve never performed the Heimlich maneuver before but if you need me to do it just tap your feet twice and I’ll know,” he offered, still panicking.

Ethan shook his head a stole Stile’s drink instead. Gulping it down like his life depended on it, and maybe it did. 

“Better?” Stiles asked once Ethan put the drink down and gasped for air. Ethan shakily nodded and because Stiles couldn’t help himself now that the crisis was averted he had to ask. “Is this because Lydia thinks you’re gay?”

“Will you stop saying that!” Ethan exclaimed sealing Stiles’ mouth with a hand only to quickly remove it when he felt something wet against it. “Did you just licked me?!” Ethan pulled away aggravated. “Seriously dude what is wrong with you?”

“Funny, I could ask you the same question,” replied Stiles nonplused. “I haven’t seen someone overreact so much since Scott had to cancel a date with Allison because his mom grounded him. _And he was flailing three classes at the time!_ ” Stiles scoffed but then it hit him. “Unless,” he said looking at Ethan in bewilderment. “Dude Lydia nailed it didn’t she? You really are-”

“Don’t finish it!” Ethan yelled standing up abruptly, the rest of his meal accompanying his spilt drink on the ground. Stiles noted that Ethan had both hands closed in tightened fists and that his whole core was trembling.

Stiles decided that maybe trying to appease him first before bombarding him with more question wouldn’t be such an unorthodox idea.

“If it means anything to you Lydia didn’t discuss her theory with anyone else. Heck she only mentioned it to me because I was going on and on about how Aiden might get jealous of you for sitting with Lydia when she has yet to accept his offer to sit at his table. And it’s not like she got any proof of it and she’ll never be able to confirm it if I don’t say anything. So really dude, chill, your secret is safe with me.”

Ethan nodded trying to calm himself down. For all that he liked to put the blame of staying in the closet on Aiden, the truth was that Ethan was just as or even more terrified of coming out—since last time he did so ended so catastrophic. Yeah Ethan may had toyed aloud with the idea that things might be different here in Beacon Hills, but those were just empty words to get under Aiden’s skin. 

The possibility of actually going through with it was so implausible to Ethan that just the idea of Stiles knowing his secret felt like someone was choking the air out of him.

“Here, let me help with that,” Stiles said as he swiped the remains of Ethan’s meal into his tray so that he can throw it out later. Ethan slowly knelt down and helped Stiles out with it. Once done Stiles gave Ethan a wary glance. “So… are we okay?” he asked, testing the waters.

Ethan paused before nodding. But then his mind seemed to have finally caught up with him because he turned quickly turned to Stiles and pleaded. “But you can’t tell anyone else about this you hear me? You just can’t! If you do I’ll-”

“Dude relax, I told you to chill remember?” Stiles cut in, raising his hands to show that he meant no harm. “Frankly I’m offended that you think so low of me, for if you knew me you’d know I can keep secrets like a tomb,” he boasted with no small amount of self-importance.

“Y-Yeah,” Ethan backed off looking a little lost. “Right.” He was still trying to make sense of the fact that someone besides his brother knew his secret. He wanted to trust that Stiles could guard it well but so far all he knew of Stiles was that he was the opposite of discrete and that _really_ made it hard to feel optimistic. Plus Ethan was terrified of Aiden finding out about it because well, let’s just say it wouldn’t bode well for any of the parties involved. Especially Stiles.

But how did you warn a guy to keep a lid on it or there would be dire consequences and not sound like you’re making a threat?

“Look,” said Stiles making an awkward move to pat Ethan on the shoulder but then aborting it. “How about I give you time to process whatever it is you need to process and then when you finish with that you let me know, alright?” he proposed. “And dude, seriously, relax. It’s really isn’t that big of a deal.”

“Says you,” countered Ethan snappily, but when Stiles raised his hands in surrender Ethan deflated again. “Sorry, it’s just, sorry.”

“No I get it. Careless comment on my part. Won’t happen again,” Stiles pacified. “So we’re good?” he asked one more time, watching Ethan at a careful distance. Ethan could only nod, not trusting himself to say anything else.

\--__

A week came and passed and then some but Ethan still ate his lunch outside of the cafeteria. It wasn’t like he was really avoiding them; he still spoke with Danny and Stiles during class. And as the days passed it was becoming easier to do so. Not to mention that Aiden basically gave him a free pass to talk to Stiles as much as he wanted. But that didn’t mean he felt nearly comfortable enough to sit with Stiles’ group.

In the classroom if Ethan didn’t want to talk about something he could just pretend to be paying attention to class and get away with it. It’s something he wouldn’t be able to pull off if things got awkward during lunch hour. And every time he tried to psych himself up for it—telling himself that today was the day—his knees would shake the minute he stepped into the cafeteria and he would immediately bail out.

It was getting pathetic, he was well aware of that. He was probably starting to look like a sociopath too. Ethan hated feeling so insecure but it wasn’t like he had a choice; it just wasn’t easy being him. Sometimes he wished he could be like Danny. Happy, carefree, with lots of friends and no traumas. In Ethan’s eyes Danny had it all. The allure of having that was probably one of the many things that made Danny so attractive to Ethan. If only he could have a little piece of that for himself.

“So Danny, huh?”

To say that Ethan wasn’t surprised that Stiles had sneaked up on him again would be an underestimation. Stiles randomly popping up on Ethan’s radar had become a recurrent feature as of late that Ethan was starting to expect it. But that didn’t mean that Ethan had to come clean about anything, even if he was caught red-handed.

“What are you talking about?” asked Ethan facing forward and avoiding eye contact.

“Dude you’ve been ogling Danny for the past 4 minutes now. And I would know seeing as I’ve been seating here counting them the whole time,” affirmed Stiles, showing Ethan the timer on his phone as proof.

They were in Gym class again and not for the first time Ethan had faked a stomachache to get out of participating in it. He had been so lost in thought that he didn’t notice when Stiles had plopped down next to him. And crap, Ethan must have been following Danny with his eyes unconsciously.

“I was _not_ ogling,” Ethan defended, unable to come up with a plausible excuse to what he was doing.

“Sure dude,” Stiles consented sarcastically. “And I’m probably imagining the drool on your shirt also.”

“Wha-” Ethan looked down at his shirt to verify and heard Stiles immediately snorting in laughter. Ethan glared at the other then, realizing that he just been played a trick on. “Ass.”

Stiles shook his head with a fist in his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he chortled. “You’re just too easy!”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Ethan grumbled facing ahead again with what closely resembled a pout on his face.

Once Stiles was able to compose himself he swung on leg over to the other side of the bench so he could sit facing Ethan. And to the surprise of no one he started to bombard Ethan with questions.

“So for how long” Stiles asked bluntly, all seriousness in his voice. Ethan raised an eyebrow at him as to ask ‘how long what?’ and Stiles looked like he wanted to roll his eyes at him, probably thinking that Ethan was just being difficult. Still he reiterated. “For how long have you been crushing on Danny? And don’t try to deny it because I know all about crushes,” Stiles warned. “Heck, the whole town knows that I’ve been harboring one for 8 years now so don’t try me.”

Ethan stared at Stiles for a long minute. He wanted nothing more than to deny Stiles’ accusations. But a part of him, a very large part of him as Ethan was beginning to find out, wanted nothing more than to relieve the load on someone else. Something that he hadn’t been able to do for a very long time. Not even with his twin brother.

It just generally sucked to always have to keep everything in; and maybe this was the only chance Ethan would ever get to unload. It didn’t mean it would be easy though as Ethan found himself unable to lock eyes with Stiles. Instead Ethan opted for keeping his head bowed, staring at his hands locked between his knees as he licked his dry lips in preparation for the huge leap of faith he was about to take.

“I, I uh, d-don’t know,” Ethan muttered barely above a whisper. It felt like his whole throat wanted to close on him and Stiles had to lean forward in order to understand any of it. “From the first-t-t time I saw him, I guess.”

“God,” Stiles said leaning back, unable to hold back the humorless chuckle that escaped his mouth. “I’m sorry I ever called you Jackson 2.0. You’re clearly Scott redux.”

Ethan had no clue what that meant but at least Stiles wasn’t running to the hills crying and screaming so at least that had to be good. At least Ethan hoped it was anyways.

\--__

After Gym came the last class of the day, Trigonometry, which is the one other class that Ethan took with both Danny and Stiles. Usually this was the time were Ethan got the most alone time with Danny because 1) they sat at the back of the class and 2) is the only class where Lydia actually talks to Stiles so he almost never looks their way.

Until today that is.

For some reason Stiles kept glancing back at them for the entirety of the class, giving Ethan a knowing smile before refocusing on what the teacher was scribbling on the chalkboard. At one time Stiles even gave Ethan the thumbs up and Ethan almost threw his pencil at him for being such a dweeb. _Could Stiles be any less subtle?_

By the sixth time Stiles did it Ethan engaged him in a silent eye conversation were he basically glared Stiles to stop being so obvious while Stiles denied that he was doing anything. Finally it seemed that Stiles’ actions became too distracting for even Lydia that she flicked his ear into paying attention for the rest of the class and _that_ was the end of it.

However when the last bell rang Stiles rose from his seat and ambled his way toward the back of the room where Ethan and Danny were.

“Whattup Ethan, how’s my homeboy, what’s happening?” hollered Stiles making all sorts of ridiculously exaggerated arm movements that Ethan didn’t even bother trying to figure out.

“What do you want?” Ethan fired back unamused from his desk. Danny was already packing his things but suddenly it seemed like he was taking his sweet time with it.

“Aha, I always knew you were a sharp man Ethan my friend!” Stiles praised but he could see that Ethan was anything but flattered so Stiles decided to just be direct with it. “See I was thinking that since we have a test on Friday that you and me join up to study afterschool—say today afternoon preferably at my place?” he said pointing between them as if Ethan needed any emphasis on who ‘you and me’ were.

Ethan furrowed his eyebrows at that. “Why?” he asked with a bit of apprehension.

“Because sometimes I don’t think my dad believes me when I tell him I have other friends besides Scott and it’d be nice to rub one in his face every once in a while,” Stiles explained like that should have already been a given. “Besides if my dad sees me with someone like you he’ll think I’m moving up in the world.”

“Like me?”

“You know, like the stereotypical meathead. Dude he doesn’t even have to know that you have a brain. Really, it’s all about the packaging, not on what’s inside. So please just do a friend a solid and say you’ll come? I’ll cook,” Stiles offered trying to sweeten the deal.

“I’m actually a little afraid of what you’re capable of doing if left alone in the kitchen,” Ethan stated blankly, and before Stiles could fire a comeback Ethan relented. “But I guess meeting the town’s sheriff might be cool so count me in,” he finished with a grin.

“Dude, score!” Stiles celebrated but before he could get any other word out Danny brushed past him almost bumping into Stiles as he headed outside without so much as a goodbye. “What’s his problem?” Stiles wondered aloud, staring at the classroom door Danny exited from.

Ethan also followed Danny’s hurried retreat with a forlorn expression. “I don’t know…”

\--__

After getting Stiles’ home address and promising to stop by a little after 4:00pm, Ethan found himself back in the place he had avoided ever since that fateful day when he had promised to stay away from Danny. The weights’ center.

Only Danny wasn’t there. Instead four other guys inhabited the premises.

Giving a huff Ethan decided to screw it. He was already in gym clothes so he might as well do a couple of sets. And hence that was how he stayed there until he was the only one left. Tired out and appraising that the room looked decisively creepy when alone, Ethan finished his last set of weigh lifting before calling it a day. He would have to be at Stiles’ soon anyways.

Yet as fate would have it just as Ethan was wiping his face of sweat with a hand towel Danny walked in also dressed in gym clothes. Both stopped on their tracks when they saw each other.

“Oh,” Danny muttered at the same time Ethan said “Hi”.

Five seconds of silence later and Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “I pictured you already at Stiles’ by now. Didn’t think I’d find you here,” he said as a way of greeting.

Ethan shrugged one shoulder. “I’m actually on my way there. Just finished up.”

“Don’t let me get in your way then,” Danny sidestepped having nothing else to say. Ethan turned after him seriously confused by the other’s behavior.

“Are you mad at me?” Ethan asked puzzled, not sure what he did to deserve such flippant attitude.

“Forget it,” Danny dismissed not even bothering to look Ethan’s way. Ethan stared after him for about a minute trying to figure it out but with Danny acting like he wasn’t there Ethan found that he really didn’t want to be there either.

“Fine, be that way,” Ethan reproached as he turned to leave only to be stopped by Danny’s outburst.

“See here is what I don’t get,” stated Danny finally turning to face Ethan. “Every time I bring up the possibility of hanging out after school, you always come up with some bullshit excuse to say that you’re busy,” Danny argued hitting it right on the mark. “But then Stiles only has to ask once and you’re cool with it?” he accused sounding incredulous. “Tell Ethan, how else am I supposed to take that?”

But even though the situation was admittedly serious—and even though Ethan should have felt exposed—without meaning to a smile broke out of Ethan’s face because he just couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Was this even real? Danny obviously wasn’t expecting such a reaction because he asked Ethan what was so funny.

“You,” Ethan answered, flopping down to seat crossed-legged on the tiled floor as he grinned at Danny. “Oh how the tables have turn. This is golden,” he chuckled before deciding to have mercy on Danny by letting him in on the joke. “Now who’s the one who is jealous of Stiles?” he asked amused.

Danny had to take a step back to connect the dots. And once he did he shook his head because even he had to admit, albeit begrudgingly, that the reversal was funny.

“Alright, I admit it. _Maybe_ I was acting a little jealous of Stiles,” Danny consented, sitting down as well and crossing his arms over his chest.

“I don’t think there’s any room for maybes there,” Ethan countered, still amused.

“Haha, funny,” Danny chided thinking that maybe he deserved that for the way he was acting. Then he sighed and stared at the ground. “It’s just that, and forgive me if this sounds corny, but you kinda become my best friend here at school so I guess it kinda ticks me off when I think that I might not be yours. See what I mean?”

“I, whoa…” to think that Danny actually felt that close to him did wonders to Ethan’s insides. He wasn’t expecting such a confession and his heart even skipped a few beats. But that was nothing compared to what his body went through when Danny added what he said next.

“And I guess that if I’m being honest here—and be aware that this might come off bit weird coming from me,” Danny warned looking at Ethan a tad nervously. “The truth is that if you weren’t straight you probably be exactly my type.”

When Danny said that, a knot appeared on Ethan’s throat and he was sure that he was blushing bright red. If he understood that well then that meant that Danny _really_ liked him, meaning that Ethan had an actual chance of being with him. He got so lost in picturing how that would play out that he forgot to give any kind of reaction to Danny. A fact that Danny took as a bad sign.

“Sorry,” said Danny bowing his head, “I guess that sounded even weirder than I’d imagined it would.”

“N-No you don’t have to apologized, t-that wasn’t weird at all, honestly,” Ethan quickly reacted having enough presence of mind to keep things from derailing further. “If anything what’s weird is that I don’t really mind it. If anything I’m kinda glad to hear it. Is that strange?”

Danny shook his head laughing. “Only if it strokes your ego too much. God knows I don’t need another person in my life getting bigheaded,” He joked before giving Ethan an assessing look. “You know, you really grown a lot from a month ago when just being near me made you uncomfortable. I remember how you almost bolted the first time we were here together. You’re nowhere near as fidgety now. I feel we made a real breakthrough.”

“Well, you know,” Ethan mumbled, keeping eye contact with Danny even though it was not helping his blushing— _good thing he could blame it on the workout he just did_. “It’s not like you made it hard to be friends with you.”

“Oh I know,” said Danny raising his chin in boast. “And just so you know I’ll take full bragging rights on altering your perceptions of the world. Now get out of here a take a shower because you’re really stinking up the place,” he joked, giving the other a shooing motion.

Ethan rolled his eyes and got up on his feet amused. “Well I’m sorry but we can’t all smell like Abercrombie & Fitch all day everyday like _some_ people,” he shot back.

“It’s Armani!” Danny called after him, dimple smile ever present.

\--__

When Stiles opened the front door of his house that afternoon the last thing he expected was to be hugged by the waist and lifted off his feet. “The fuck man!”

“He said he liked me,” Ethan exclaimed spinning Stiles around before having to put the teen back on his feet because of how much he was wiggling.

Stiles immediately went to fix his now rumpled clothes as he moved out of the way to let Ethan inside. “Nice to see you too,” Stiles mumbled under his breath as he closed the door after Ethan. “So tell me again, _who_ said he liked you?”

“Um…” Ethan started, eyes darting around the house apprehensively. Stiles noticed what he was doing and was quick to reassure Ethan that they were alone; no one else was in the house. “Right,” Ethan nodded, giving one last scan to his surroundings before his face broke into a smile as he turned to Stiles. “Danny,” he explained. “He just told me that I was his type; ergo that must mean he likes me.”

“That’s great!” Stiles cheered thinking of how this was Scott all over again. He briefly remembered how enthusiastic Scott had been when Allison agreed to go on a date with him only to be bumped when he realized it was a double date with Jackson and Lydia later. Funny stuff. “So all you have to do is tell him you like him back and presto, another fairytale ending for the ages,” Stiles added with gusto.

But he might as well told Ethan that his puppy died with how quickly Ethan paled at his words.

“No, I c-can’t,” Ethan said backing away, eyes shifting to side to side as if cornered. His previous joy had temporarily clouded his judgment and it was only now that he was putting things into perspective. “I, no- I could never do that,” he restated confusing the hell out of Stiles.

“Why not?” asked Stiles not getting it. “You obviously like him. If this is about you not being ready to come out of the closet I’m sure Danny would understand. Heck if you want I could even talk to him for you. I promise he won’t out you if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Yet Ethan shook his head vehemently at Stiles’ offer. “No you don’t understand,” muttered Ethan, still not sounding all there. “I’m not supposed to even be talking with Danny much less be seen with him. If this somehow went back to Aiden I don’t know what he’ll do. Shit why did I even go to the weight’s room in the first place?” he cursed, hands rooting themselves in his head. The hysteria in his voice was beginning to rise.

“Wow backpedal a minute,” Stiles spoke, hands grabbing Ethan’s wrists and pulling them out of his hair. “What does your brother have to do with any of this?” he questioned.

“He warned me to stay away from Danny,” Ethan answered back making eye contact with Stiles and looking a little less frantic now that Stiles was restraining his arm movement. Yet instead of keeping on hysteria inside he redirected it toward Stiles. “Things were never supposed to get this out of hand. What if Danny wants to hang out with me more now? If people start seeing us together outside of school they will start to talk. You don’t understand it Stiles, I _can’t_ handle people talking about me. I can’t! This is exactly what my brother was trying to protect me from. Fuck! Why didn’t I listen?”

“Okay seriously dude I’m gonna need you to. Calm. The. Fuck. Down,” Stiles said sternly, backing Ethan to the wall before backing away himself. Ethan nodded albeit still looking ragged. Stiles was about to say something else but then his phone rang. Rummaging through his pocket he saw it was Scott.

“Shit, I have to take this,” said Stiles before pointing at Ethan. “And you need to calm down. Think of something relaxing like, I don’t know, like Danny without a shirt. That always helps Scott.” And when he saw the face Ethan gave him Stiles flailed. “Not like that! I meant that Scott always pictures Allison when he wants to calm down, not Danny! Jesus, it’s like dealing with eight-graders. Just do me a favor and anchor yourself okay? Hello?” said Stiles finally answering his phone.

Ethan did as he was told and tried to desaccelerate his heartbeat. He couldn’t believe how he just lost it a second there. Anxiety was really not a good look on him and he hoped he hadn’t permanently scared Stiles off with that display of utter lack in self-control.

Maybe Ethan was making a mountain out of molehill. It wasn’t too late to prevent this from becoming the sequel to one of the darkest days of his life. He still could turn this around. All he had to do was be more careful from now on. Yeah, that’s it. Ethan was beginning to calm down the more he thought this through.

He might have to get himself a girlfriend, that would be the quickest and surest way to clear all suspicion out of him. But who he was kidding? He could never play with someone feelings like that. If he could then he would had gone out with Cora Hale freshmen year and none of this would had happened. And besides he wouldn’t be nearly as convincing when Danny already held a prominent place in his mind.

Danny… back then Ethan wanted nothing more than to say that he liked Danny back. He wanted to get up and kiss the boy. Go full on make out session with Danny right there in that room and rub against each other until both found their completion. If it weren’t for everything holding him back he would have surrendered himself up for Danny to do whatever he wanted with him no questions asked.

God he was so screwed.

“No Scott I already told you I can’t come over!” Stiles yelled into his phone, seemingly at wits end with the conversation. “Because I’m busy trying to figure out why Ethan won’t confess to Danny, that’s why!” he shouted, free hand swinging up and down as he tried to make his point clear. “No Scott I don’t care if it isn’t any of my business and what the heck do you mean with _‘is Ethan in the room with me?’_ Of course he’s with me why wouldn’t- Oh Shit!!” Stiles whirled around and saw Ethan standing pressed against the wall pale as a ghost. “Scott buddy I’mma have to call you back.”

By the time Stiles got to the other teen Ethan already had a hand grasping his own throat trying to force the air inside.

“Crap, I really screwed that one up didn’t I?” Stiles stated more than asked. He was standing next to Ethan with one hand on his shoulder while the other one was on his chest trying to keep him standing upright. “But dude you have to breathe ‘cause you’re really starting to freak me out!” And it was clear that Stiles was starting to get nervous.

Ethan tried to do just that at Stiles behest only to find the task to be next to impossible. “I can’t,” Ethan wheezed, feeling his vision go blurry. His trembling knees started to buckle under him and Ethan began sliding down the wall. “I can’t,” he repeated sounding twenty times more alarmed than before.

This was more than simply hyperventilating and Stiles eyes widen when he identified the symptoms. “Panic attack,” he blurted in recognition and was immediately kneeling next to Ethan; patting his back; reassuring him that everything would be okay; insisting that nobody dies from a panic attack; _telling him to breathe!_

It had been a long time since Stiles experienced a terror quite like this and he wasn’t exactly elated to be on the vanguard of it again but he had no other choice. Ethan gripped Stiles wrist so tightly that it was sure to leave a bruising mark later but still Stiles persisted in his efforts to get Ethan through this.

Then, slowly but surely, Ethan was beginning to take in deeper gulps of air and his hold on Stiles was beginning to loosen.

“Wha- What happened?” Ethan asked disoriented once his breathing started to even out. He really couldn’t focus on looking at anything no matter how hard he tried.

“You were going into shock,” Stiles explained feeling suddenly too tired to even try to stand up. “I gotta tell you, it’s been a while since I’ve experience a panic attack. Can’t say I missed it.”

Ethan nodded, still too shaky to say more than a few words. “Thank… you…I-”

“Don’t mention it,” interrupted Stiles. “It was kinda my fault anyways. Jeez sometimes I just can’t stop myself from blurting things out!” he reprimanded himself. Ethan nodded at that but Stiles still felt like he had to explain himself.

“No seriously dude it’s just that when it comes to Scott well, he’s kinda more than just my best friend. He’s like my brother and even though we get on each other’s nerves a lot we never really keep secrets from each other. So I kinda blurted that out naturally to him but I promise you don’t have to worry about it. Between Scott and me nothings gets out. Honest! And I just want you to know that I’m deeply, _deeply_ apologetic right now. And I hope that you will let me make it up to you in whatever possible way you, wish, things, made up, to, you, in.”

Ethan shook his head and raised one hand to stop Stiles from babbling more. He just wanted to focus on getting his strength back so he could stand up again without his legs feeling like jelly.

Stiles tried to remain quiet for his friend. Was Ethan still his friend? Stiles wasn’t really sure where here stood with Ethan. The hand gesture wasn’t really too indicative about if Stiles had been forgiven or not. However Stiles’ mind was running a hundred miles per hour and he couldn’t help to voice at least one of his observations.

“You’re really freaked out about coming out aren’t you?” Stiles asked to which Ethan only replied with a humorless laugh. “And your brother…” and here was the part that Stiles really didn’t get. “What does your brother has to do with anything? Why is it so important for him not to find out?” he asked slowly, measuring every single word as he spoke it. Careful to not set off Ethan again. “Is he- I mean, does he-” and Stiles couldn’t figure out how to ask it politely. “Does he… hurt you?”

Ethan scoffed at the insinuation. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t. It’s not like that. The last thing Aiden would do is hurt me,” he declared, getting defensive.

“Alright, fine, I get it,” Stiles said backing off. “It’s just, you know, Sheriff’s son, I got to ask these questions. You can’t fault me for it,” Stiles justified. However he wasn’t particularly satisfied with the non-answers so he decided to push it a little further. “Still, you seemed pretty scared of him for this to be about nothing. Scared enough to have a panic attack in my living room might I add. And maybe I am wrong to presume this but I’m beginning to think that this is way more than a simple fear of coming out of the closet.”

“You’re right,” stated Ethan unexpectedly, leaving Stiles with his mouth open. “But it’s not what you think. Aiden isn’t the bad guy,” Ethan explained, bringing his legs to his chest and wrapping his arms around his knees. He refused to look at the other teen’s direction as he submerged himself in the memories from his past.

“Believe it or not I didn’t always used to be afraid of people; of letting them see me for who I really was. In my old school I had lots of friends, lots of people who I’ve known for all my life. People who I had a lot of fun together with. People who bonded with me and had my back,” Ethan enlightened, a fond smile adorning his face at the memories before his face transformed to one of anguish. “But that all change when I came out. It was like what we had together never existed. As if someone removed me from their past with an eraser.”

If Stiles was surprised to hear that Ethan had come out once before he didn’t say anything. Instead he let Ethan continue his story undisturbed. And Ethan let out a bitter laugh as he remembered what came next.

“Suddenly nobody knew me or wanted to get to know me. None of my friends wanted to be around me, and by extension, around my brother. And I know Aiden resented me for that. Not that I disagreed with his sentiment because I also thought it was my fault for being abnormal.”

“I was bullied. Everyday I was bullied,” he reiterated. “I was shoved into lockers, picked on in gym class and called names on daily basis. But I thought I could handle it. I was plenty capable of fighting back and it was my fault after all,” Ethan said smiling, trying to go for unaffected but falling short of it. “Except it didn’t take long for them to start ganging up on me. In the cafeteria. In the bathroom. On the school lot after school… I missed days of school because of how badly they would beat me up.”

A forlorn expression overtook Ethan’s face as he juggled with what he should and should not say. “I started skipping school,” Ethan said after a long pause. “I couldn’t take anymore,” he explained, and suddenly a guilty expression manifested itself on Ethan that he had to hide his face in his knees before being able to soldier on. “It turned out to be a bad move to make on my part because without me there they started picking on Aiden instead.”

“It wasn’t fair to him. He having to pay for my faults,” Ethan explained, the pain in his voice not exactly muffled by his hiding place. “I felt so responsible until I just couldn’t take it anymore,” he said with a repressed sniffle and it was only then that Stiles realized that Ethan was hiding his face because he was tearing up. And yet still nothing could have prepared him for what he heard next. “I, I tried to take my life once. To hang myself.”

The finality in Ethan’s voice as he said that startled Stiles. It wasn’t everyday that someone confessed to attempting suicide and Stiles didn’t know how to react to that. Furthermore that declaration set off so many warning bells inside Stiles’ head that he wanted nothing more than to stop Ethan and verify that he wasn’t still contemplating the thought. Yet he feared that interrupting Ethan might disrupt whatever juju was making Ethan open up and Stiles couldn’t risk having Ethan close up again. So for better or for worse Stiles remained silent still.

“Obviously I failed,” Ethan continued after another pause. “My brother found me in time and for that I owe him everything. But my actions scarred him in ways I couldn’t even begin to imagine. And very next day, when Aiden went back to school only to be picked on… Aiden didn’t hold back. He beat on some kid so bad that he almost killed him. To this day I remember exactly how he looked like with someone else’s blood covering his shirt and fists. He got expelled from school for that even though he wasn’t the one who started it. And of course I went with him. I owed him that. Actually I owe him a lot more than that.”

Ethan sniffed again, wiping his face with the sleeve of his shirt before resting his head against the wall. His reddened face now out in the open.

“We didn’t just transferred school on a whim or because we had to move or anything. We, we were forced out,” Ethan explained. “All the way across the country just to make sure no one would know us. That’s why we don’t even have facebook!” Ethan condemned. “But the worst part was that I singlehandedly ruined Aiden’s life and for what? I got _nothing_ to show for it. Nothing except that now I’m pathologically scared of revealing my secret ever again.”

“Whoa… not gonna lie that’s really messed up and I’m sorry it happened to you,” Stiles said finally having heard enough to have a clue of what he was working with. “But you can’t blame yourself for it.” And at Ethan’s scoff Stiles tagged, “No really, none of that is your fault! So you got a beyond shitty reception the last time. _None_ of that was under your control. And if your brother is half as good as you claim then he shouldn’t hold you accountable for it either.”

“Tch, you’re just saying that.”

“No I’m not!” Stiles argued. “Look, maybe I don’t understand it completely. But what I do know is that you can’t let what happened in the past or your brother stop you from living your life now.”

“Aiden is just trying to prevent what happened last time from happening again. And he actually likes it here. I can’t ruin that for him a second time.”

“But you aren’t there anymore. You’re in Beacon Hills. I promise you that things are different here. Trust me. Shit just look at Danny!” 

“My brother would disagree.”

“Screw what he thinks of it, it’s your life not his!!” Stiles shot back throwing his arms up in exasperation. “Look,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t know how siblings work but you got to stop hiding in your brother’s shadow. That can’t be healthy. Sometimes you got to tell big brother to piss off and do it your way, understand?”

Ethan smiled involuntarily at that. “Actually, I’m the older brother. Seven minutes,” he cleared up, a little bit of mirth back on his voice.

“Well all the more reason to!” Stiles exclaimed, a chuckle escaping him as well. “Next time you see him you got to assert your position as the alpha twin. Here I’ll demonstrate,” Stiles said standing up and putting his hands on his hips in the Superman pose. “You look him straight in the eye and say ‘I am Alpha here me roar’. Rrrrgh!”

And Ethan couldn’t stop himself from bursting out laughing at Stiles ridiculous display. With the mood properly lifted Stiles sat back down on the floor next to Ethan. 

Ethan whipped the remaining tear from his eyes and smiled. “Why couldn’t I have fallen for you? Life would be so much easier if I had.”

“Wait what?” questioned Stiles, now suddenly more alert than before. “Was that a come-on? Should I interpret it as a come-on, are you coming on to me?” he asked genuinely curious to know.

Ethan laughed shaking his head at the other’s behavior. “Stiles, what _are_ you?” he asked only half serious. 

“Because you know, it takes a while, but I can certainly see how your face would be appealing,” Stiles continued his appraisal as if Ethan hadn’t said anything. “A little rugged but not necessarily off-putting.”

“Boyd was right, you are weird as fuck.”

“Hey!” Stiles protested. “Fortunately for you I’m going to take that as a compliment and not as you trying to hurt my feelings. My very real feelings. Because I feel things you know.”

Ethan laughed and clarified for Stiles’ sake that it was indeed intended as a compliment.

“Right, I knew that,” stated Stiles nodding.

After a few moments of awkward silence Stiles proposed that they get up and actually study like they were supposed to be doing. A proposition Ethan was more than eager to agree to. It was close to 7:30pm when Ethan left. He didn’t get to meet the Sheriff but Stiles didn’t seem too disappointed about it.

Instead, as Ethan was preparing to leave, Stiles seemed more focused on making sure that everything was going to be okay with Ethan—with Scott knowing and stuff. Ethan couldn’t say how he felt about it and he wasn’t willing to give Stiles any false assurances. But he did manage to promise Stiles that he wasn’t going to freak out about this again and that he wouldn’t do anything drastic, or whatever Stiles meant by that.

All in all Ethan was grateful to finally have someone to talk these types of things with out in the open. It wasn’t until he got on his bike that he realized how much lighter he felt now that he shared his secret with Stiles.

However that was the very thing that gnawed his mind as he made his way back home. He wondered if he had indeed made the right decision on putting his trust in Stiles. Ethan sighed because whatever the case, only tomorrow would tell him.

\--__

Allison said “hi” to Ethan when she passed him by on the way to her desk in Creative Writing class the next day. Ethan wouldn’t normally consider that to be anything major except for the fact that Allison had never said hi to him before. Suddenly he was dreading that secrets between Stiles and Scott weren’t exactly as tight-lipped as Stiles assured him to be—and remained on edge for the rest of the day until Regular Chemistry happened.

As always during Chemistry class, Aiden and Ethan were seated together. The fact that they did all the assignments together was something that wasn’t missed by anyone in the classroom. In fact most everyone considered it a staple of their sibling bond.

Prof. Harris himself was one these people who skimmed on this fact about them. However he was not one to fall for such an allure. His lenses were not rose colored but clear glass. And so, as a teacher, he was only able to see one thing and one only. Codependency. Not an attribute Prof. Harris was particularly fond of.

It also was a trait that could be easily remedied.

“Alright class. Today we’re doing a class project. And to make it easier on myself to work through the idiotic babble you call reports, you’ll be doing it in pairs,” Prof. Harris announced while immediately holding a hand up to stop the students’ cheer. “Ah ah, not so eager everyone. _I’ll_ be assigning the pairs.”

Not a second passed by before Aiden was already raising his hand up. “But I always pair up with Ethan,” he argued.

Prof. Harris tooted at this. “Separation is the word Mr. Aiden. Someday you’ll look bad and thank me for it. Now why don’t you pair up with Mrs. Sanchez? And next time _wait_ until I call you before speaking. This is a laboratory not the cafeteria,” Prof. Harris reprimanded sounding all too pleased with himself. “Ethan, you’re with McCall.”

At the mention of Scott’s last name Ethan tensed. He remained rigid on his seat as Scott plopped down next to him; backpack making a loud thud as it hit the floor. “Sorry,” apologized Scott for the noise. Ethan only nodded his head rigidly, busying himself with the lab equipment to have a reason to avoid looking at the other teen.

Scott however was too busy lamenting his own situation to notice how uncomfortable his new lab partner was acting. He had not studied for lab today because he spent yesterday texting Allison all day since Stiles hadn’t been able to come over to study with him instead. So really how else was Scott supposed to spent the rest of his afternoon if not by letting his girlfriend know how much he loves her?

However that meant that now he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing in class today. And one look at the instructions had his eyes spinning already. “What are we even supposed to do?” Scott mourned, staring pitifully at the endless list of steps the project required. “This whole thing is one big conundrum to me.”

“Big word” Ethan mumbled to himself and Scott instantly grinned looking mighty proud of it being noticed.

“Thanks,” Scott said, beaming side to side as he offered to shake Ethan’s hand. “The name’s Scott. I’ve been working on expanding my vocabulary this year. It’s a goal I set for myself.”

Ethan had to refrain from thinking that Scott acted like an actual puppy as he shook his hand. “Ethan,” he answered and Scott frowned when he noticed how apprehensive Ethan’s handshake was. Ethan immediately turned away from him and messed with the lab equipment again wishing he could make himself invisible.

“You know,” said Ethan trying to divert Scott’s attention away from how nervous he felt. “I’ve done this experiment before s-so if you want I can handle all the process while you take all the notes,” he offered. “Sounds good?”

Scott lighted up at that. “Stiles was right about you,” Scott commented pulling his notebook out. Ethan raised one eyebrow in question but kept his gaze on the instruments they’ll be using; unsure if he wanted to hear what that was about. “You’re alright,” Scott declared and Ethan froze in his movements.

Did he hear that right?

Scott, an undoubtedly straight guy who isn’t family yet is in the know of Ethan’s sexuality thought that he was alright? Ethan felt his breath get stuck in his lungs. Scott blinked as he watched Ethan fighting hard to swallow just so he could get a word out. “Thanks,” was all Ethan said.

“Sure!” Scott replied grinning, pulling a pencil out to write the date on his notebook. 

Ethan on the other hand couldn’t believe he had spent so much time being intimidated by someone like Scott. Stiles was right, maybe Ethan needed to stop being so afraid and start having a little more faith in people. Smiling to himself he proceeded with the first step of the experiment. It almost felt like the weight on Ethan’s shoulders was reducing its load and suddenly it got that much easier to breathe.

\--__

“Stretching. Yep, stretching is were it’s at!” Stiles declared as he stretched his arms over his head. “You know what happens when you don’t stretch? Nothing. Or so you think! See for a while you exercise; get stronger, get leaner, even look better. You start to think ‘who needs to stretch?’ And then _wham_ tomorrow happens and you wake up with a slight pain in your back. You think its nothing major. Until you continue to forget to do your stretches before working out and a few days later you squat down and you feel something tweak in your lower back. Something’s wrong. You want to stretch it out but you can’t because it’s hard to breathe. It feels like your spine popped out of place. Your life is over.”

“And to think that it all could have been prevented by taking five minutes of your time to stretch,” Ethan commented as he finished his shoulder shrugs.

“Ah, so you caught the morale of the story young Skywalker. The force is strong with this one,” Stiles expressed, making his best Darth Vader impression.

Ethan had a hard time resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Shit, I can’t believe it’s actually happening,” Ethan cursed but with a teasing grin. “I never thought the day would come when I stop thinking of your endless blabber as annoying.”

Stiles’ expression gave in to shock before faking a resigned sigh and lamenting. “Oh woe the everyday travesties of being me. Like a drug I tell you. I wish I could give you a better prognosis except we all know that there’s no rehab for Stiles. You’re just gonna have to live with it buddy.”

“As if,” Ethan jested giving the other a playful shove. Stiles only laughed at this before announcing loudly that he had to go drain the snake. “Dude, oversharing,” Ethan remarked scrunching his face.

“Sharing is caring!” Stiles shouted back as he scampered off while yelling at Ethan to cover for him.

The coach was going to have them running track again so Stiles and Ethan had been doing their stretches alone in the locker room. Meanwhile Ethan informed Stiles on what happened with both Allison and Scott in today’s classes. But now that that was over Ethan headed outside with the rest of the group—the coach already whistling at him to fall in line with the rest of the students and do 16 laps.

Not 30 seconds in it and Danny dropped to the last of the line just to run next to Ethan.

“Got a little held back there with Stiles huh? Any reason why only one of you emerged to see the light of day?” Danny half asked half joked, giving Ethan a conspiratorial smirk. “Need help disposing the body?”

Ethan shook his head and grinned at Danny. “I regret to inform that despite earlier reports stating otherwise, Stiles stills remains in the land of the living,” Ethan joked back though his eyes focused on locating Aiden. So far no signs of his twin being close by. Maybe Ethan will get lucky and Aiden won’t notice him fraternizing with ‘the enemy’.

“So…” Danny started, biting his lower lip as he figured how to phrase the question nagging his brain. Forgetting momentarily about his paranoia Ethan tilted his head up, nonverbally asking Danny to spill whatever was on his mind. Danny gave Ethan an apologetic half smile before shaking his head in negation. “Nah, it’s nothing. Forget about it.”

Yet the way Danny’s smile fell off his face told Ethan it could not be nothing. However before he could pry about it he spotted Aiden jogging toward them and he did _not_ looked happy. Ethan stopped short on his tracks, about to break in cold sweat, when a sudden push propelled him to keep going forward.

Out of nowhere Scott and Isaac appeared from behind him and were now flanking both him and Danny—with Scott being beside Ethan and Isaac being beside Danny.

“What’re you guys talking about?” Scott greeted, welcoming himself into the conversation so causally you would think that him talking to Ethan was an everyday thing. Isaac gave Danny his rarely seen winning smile, which was completely distracting because Danny had never seen Isaac show so much teeth before. Ethan took the opportunity to look at Scott like if he had grown a second head and Scott responded by briefly shifting his eyes toward Aiden’s direction while whispering to just go with it.

Ethan glanced toward Aiden with the corner of his eyes and noticed his brother backtracking; and it hit him then. Safety in numbers! Now that Ethan wasn’t alone with Danny maybe Aiden no longer felt the need to interfere. Of course that would mean that Scott also knew about Aiden being a problem. And that in itself spoke volumes about Stiles’ ability to keep things to himself, or lack of.

Yet Ethan supposed he could forgive Stiles this once if it meant that he could finally spent Gym period stress-free for once in his life.

“Lacrosse tryouts are going to start soon,” quipped Isaac before the silence could stretch out further. “Is new guy going to try out?” he questioned leaning forward to look at the other three in the group even though the question was only about one of them.

“Oh that would be so cool,” cheered Scott already giving his support. “Then we could all be lacrosse buds. You gotta do it,” proclaimed Scott grinning directly at Ethan in approval.

“You know, it’s not a bad idea,” Danny contemplated giving Ethan an assessing squint before chuckling. “At least it’d be nice to have more players in the team who know not to tackle their own in a game.”

“I only did that fou- five times!” Isaac complained giving Danny a shove that was returned in kind.

“That all sounds great and fun,” said Ethan looking at each of the other three individually. “But I never heard of lacrosse before, much less know how to play it,” he admitted uneasily before a thought occurred to him. “Oh wait, is that field hockey?” he asked and immediately cringed into himself as he was bombarded with varying degrees of incredulous/offended reactions.

Ethan would have never guessed how much of a big deal lacrosse was to the students of Beacon Hills prior to this moment. In a sense he was lucky that it was only Scott’s gang that heard him because any other lacrosse player would had harassed him have they heard him.

“Alright, so it’s decided then,” Scott stated enthusiastically. “Tomorrow you and Danny will seat with us at lunch and we’ll set up a practice match to teach Ethan how to play. Everybody in?” he asked and received cheer from both Isaac and Danny, all instantly turning their gaze toward Ethan and basically peer pressuring him to agree.

“Fine,” Ethan finally said, feeling butterflies in his stomach at the thought of facing the cafeteria again.

Then the coach started to whistle at them to get their asses into gear because the laps weren’t going to run themselves.

All in all Ethan took from this that 1) Scott probably was the friendliest person he had ever met; 2) that as long as Scott didn’t have a problem with him then Isaac apparently didn’t either; 3) that Stiles apparently shared everything with his best bud; and 4) that Beacon Hills was apparently very passionate about lacrosse.

Alas it wasn’t until afterwards that Ethan remembered Danny being reluctant about asking him something. Danny basically swept it under the rug once Scott and Isaac intervened. But now that Ethan really thought about it, Danny had been acting a tad strange toward Ethan all throughout the day. Ethan hadn’t paid much attention then because he had been jumpy all day about the Scott situation; but now that he gave it some thought there was definitely something off about Danny today.

Ethan just hoped he hadn’t lost the chance to ask about it.

\--__

It was at night during dinner that Aiden confronted Ethan. Well, maybe confronted is too strong of a word for what actually happened, but the purpose was the same. Getting answers out of Ethan.

“So,” Aiden drawled, playing with his food from his position at the opposite end of the dinner table. “I see you’re friends with McCall and Lahey now…” he said, leaving the rest of his thoughts unfinished as he took a spoonful of his meal.

Ethan shifted a little on his seat as he swallowed. “They kinda invited me to their table,” Ethan answered slowly, reaching for his glass of water and taking a sip from it—eyes kept firmly on his plate. “I think I’m going to sit with them tomorrow.”

“Hmm,” Aiden mummed as he sliced the remainder of his steak into bite size pieces before stuffing one in his mouth. “I guess being seen with them is a step up from being seen with the loner,” Aiden commented mid-chew. “And how are things with the freak? You’re friends too?”

Ethan narrowed his eyes at the name-calling but refrained from getting into it with his brother. Now wasn’t the time. “ _Stiles_ -” Ethan began, stressing the name, “-and I get along well. We even studied together yesterday at his house.”

“Is that so?” asked Aiden with fake disinterest as if Ethan couldn’t tell this was the direction Aiden was steering the conversation from the start. “And have you found out anything interesting about him?” he asked, running circles around the subject.

It was obvious Aiden was looking to get a progress report out of Ethan, so Ethan decided to give it to him straight. “Besides an unfiltered mouth and some apparent Scott-related issues I’m sorry to say that there’s nothing else noteworthy about him. And before you ask I’m pretty sure he considers Lydia to be his dream come true,” Ethan stated looking Aiden directly in the eye as he said the last piece.

Aiden slowed down on his chewing before giving a nonchalant shrug and going for another piece of his steak. He didn’t take particularly well to Ethan refusing to expose the dirt on the freak—as Aiden saw it as a shift in alliances—but he was not about to loose his cool just yet. He needed to extract as much information as he could first before making his move.

“Be careful though,” Aiden warned, “I’d hate to break their noses if they find out about you. We wouldn’t want a repeat of what happened last year do we?”

To Aiden’s surprised, instead of cowering away at the mere mention of that possibility Ethan actually smiled. And it looked sincere.

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem with them. They aren’t like other students. I, I think they might be the exceptions.”

“ _Exceptions they are_ ,” Aiden stated forcefully, showcasing a little of his repressed aggression and startling Ethan in the process. Aiden gave Ethan a cruel smirk when he noticed his brother’s confusion. “What, haven’t you ever found it weird that McCall, a captain of a sports team, Argent, his girlfriend, and Lydia, the hottest girl in school, don’t sit together with the rest of the popular crowd?” Aiden questioned and at Ethan’s silenced continued.

“Really? You have never asked yourself why they sit with the school’s freak and the homeless kid? Well I have, I asked and guess what I found out? Everyone thinks McCall is on performance enhancing drugs he gets from his mother, a nurse. His hot girlfriend is a year too old to still be a junior by the way, and Lydia apparently went psycho ex girlfriend when her last boyfriend dumped her,” Aiden explained while stabbing his food with his knife. “You hear me? _None_ of them are normal. They are not like the rest of the school so you best stay away from them! And yeah they might be okay with you being gay but at what cost Ethan? Do you really want to be ostracized by the rest of the student body again?!”

“At least they accept me!” Ethan shouted back, slamming his palms on the table and standing up—Aiden doing the same.

“How would you- No, you _told them?!_ Aiden yelled mortified.

Ethan hesitated before nodding once. He watched as Aiden slowly deflated, sat back down and became completely disconnected from the world. It was so disturbing that it was starting to unnerved Ethan.

“Aiden?” he questioned cautiously but got no response. Now Ethan was really starting to panic thinking that something had snapped in his baby brother. “Aiden? Hey talk to me. Aiden.” Feeling distressed Ethan did what was second nature to him and started to backtrack. “L-Look it’s not even like that. I mean only Stiles knows for real. I haven’t really t-told anybody else. 

Aiden seemed to react to that. “Nobody else?” he verbalized, still sounding disconnected.

Ethan nodded. “Yeah and that’s only because he figured it out himself, r-really.”

Just as if Ethan had chanted the magic words to a spell, Aiden turned to pin his brother under an intense stare. “Not even Danny?” he asked with a sense of entitlement to the answer. An answer Ethan delivered by denying that Danny knew anything.

Aiden seemed to contemplate that little tidbit before announcing that he needed to be alone and leaving. Ethan stayed rooted were he stood trying to process what just happened. On the plus side Aiden hadn’t exploded the way Ethan thought he would. He hadn’t even made the usual threats that had so well characterize him so far. And it’s not like he completely prohibited Ethan from continuing seeing Stiles and his friends. He just warned Ethan to think about how he would be viewed by the rest of the school.

Technically Ethan was in the clear to do whatever he wanted so… why was he feeling so unsettled?

\--__

Next morning Aiden was very high-spirited, acting like last night hadn’t happened. He even made breakfast for both of them and spoke of how he was thinking of joining the swimming team.

“I know it’s been a while but the swim team here is pathetic as fuck. It’s like they’re begging me to join. Hell I’ll probably make captain in no time and cement my top dog status even further,” he boasted.

All in all it was a very amicable morning. And even though Ethan had remained guarded through all of it, he was starting to think that maybe the worse had already come to pass. 

\--__

Not until taking his usual seat at the back of the classroom that morning did Ethan realized that he might have celebrated his victory a little too early.

Just as homeroom was about to start, Ethan spotted Danny by the door. Though what made Ethan’s heart stop wasn’t Danny himself but the person standing next to him. 

What was Aiden up to and why was he engaging Danny in conversation? Danny gave a stiff nod to whatever Aiden just said and Aiden gave him what looked to be an apologetic pat on the shoulder. Danny turned away from him and Aiden took the opportunity to throw Ethan a wink before making himself scarce.

Danny entered the classroom and only spared Ethan a swift leer before sitting at the very front of the class and far away from him.

Baffled and seeing how the teacher had already started her announcements, Ethan quickly grabbed his phone and texted Danny to ask what the whole thing with his brother was about. Danny barely glimpsed at his phone before turning it off without so much as a glance back.

Dread was beginning to wash all over Ethan at all the possibilities of what this could mean.

It wasn’t until the first class was over that Ethan was able to stand up and rush after Danny who seemed all too eager to leave the premises as fast as possible. He caught him just outside of the classroom.

“Danny wait up!” Ethan called managing to grab the sleeve of Danny’s jacket before the other teen wrench his arm away, turning half circle to scowl at Ethan. Ethan of course was confused by this reaction. “What’s going on?” he asked, certain nervousness in his voice. “Are you mad at me?”

“Save the innocent act,” spit out Danny with such venom that Ethan had to take a step back. “I know all about your game and I’m not going to continue being a part of it,” Danny accused, turning his head sideways as he reprimanded himself. “God, I can’t believe I trusted you.”

“What are you talking about? What game?”

“You can stop pretending, your brother already told me everything,” Danny stated. “Shit I don’t know whether to be angry or hurt,” he said irritated and when Ethan tried to say something else Danny cut him off. “ _Don’t,_ ” he stated with quiet finality. “In fact don’t ever talk to me again.”

And with that Danny heel-turned and scampered away leaving Ethan with the words trapped in his mouth and his heart constricted.

\--__

“What did you say to him?!” Ethan growled as he fisted Aiden by the front of his shirt and slammed him against the lockers. Aiden however only smirked, having expected his brother’s rage.

“What's the matter dear brother? Your day started on the wrong foot? We’re going to be late for class if we don’t hurry up.”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” Ethan rebuffed getting in Aiden’s space. “Because of you Danny won’t talk to me. He thinks I’m playing some kind of game and you’re going to tell whatever it was that you said to him and you’re going to do it now.”

Despite Ethan’s show of aggression Aiden remained calm. Then his expression lit up as if he had just remember something. “Oooh now that you mention it I might have accidentally mentioned we having been expelled from our last school because of homophobia. And I might have hinted at the possibility of a similar situation brewing here.”

Ethan’s gripped on Aiden’s shirt lessened a bit as he was left puzzled by his brother’s response. “Wha, What do you mean?”

“Were you aware that Danny once thought you were a homophobe?” Aiden asked enjoying how Ethan seemed stumped by the reveal. “I mean I guess you aren’t exactly the most gay friendly person in the world. What with the way you only befriended Stiles because you were convinced he was gay and wanted to be the one to out him. Or the way you’re always making jokes behind Danny’s back about him. No one can really blame me for expressing my concerns about you to him,” Aiden chastised before continuing.

“I mean I happen to like our new school and made plenty of friends. I didn’t want to go through the ordeal of changing schools all over again. With you up to your shenanigans it was only natural for me to step up and intervene. And warning Danny about you was the only logical step for me to take if I wanted to diffuse the situation before it got out of hand. After all, once a homophobe always a homophobe.”

“You didn’t,” muttered Ethan faintly, scandalized by what he was hearing.

“I did,” Aiden confirmed getting serious. “Maybe next time you’ll pay attention to me when I tell to not do something,” he grouched.

Ethan got angry and tightened his grip on Aiden’s shirt again, speaking his mind between gritted teeth. “Listen to me, you’re going to-”

“No you listen to me,” Aiden snarled back, pushing Ethan off of him and reversing their positions. “You might not realize it right now but I did you a huge favor here. Not only will you no longer be associated with the school fag, but now your slate has been wiped clean with those who know you’re one too. You should thank me Ethan, because of me you get a second attempt at making a fresh start!” 

“Right because losing my friends is something to be grateful for,” Ethan retorted sarcastically trying to push Aiden away but Aiden wasn’t letting up.

“Those friends weren’t good for you. It was only a matter of time before one of them slipped up and got your secret out in the open and once that happens it’s back to hell all over again! Is that what you want? Or did you already forget how it almost ended your life!” Aiden spat determined to make his brother see reason. “And when it all goes to shit who do you think is going to stand up for you? Stiles? Scott?? Lahey??? _None_ of your friends stuck by you last time when the going got tough. None! So what makes you think that this time will be any different? Because it’s not, you here me, it’s not!”

Aiden pushed away from Ethan then, having already said his piece. “ _I’m_ the _only_ one who cares about you,” he stated very matter of fact as he looked Ethan up and down one final time. Aiden’s face twisted in abhorrence as he walked away. “The sooner you start accepting that the better.”

Withdrawing into himself, Ethan stayed glued against the lockers doing his best to keep at bay the fresh tears that where threatening to fall. Yes, it hurt a great lot to be reminded of how he was betrayed by basically every friend he ever made but he would not cry over this. Because Aiden was wrong. Things weren’t how they were before. Aiden _had_ to be wrong. Otherwise there was no possible way Ethan would be able to survive it.

Hiding in the bathroom Ethan skipped his current class and the following one too. Considering that he shared both with his brother it was no surprise that Ethan chose not to be near him. When the bell rang signaling a period change, Ethan went out and waited by Danny’s locker. He didn’t know what he was going to say when he saw him but Ethan just couldn’t leave it like that. 

Though all it took was one look at Ethan for Danny to 180 out of there. Ethan’s shoulders dropped at that. He was considering whether to go after Danny anyways when voice beside him stilled him.

“So for how long were you planning on stringing me along? We’re you going to invite me to prom and then cancel or were you going to wait until you could dump pig blood on me a la Carrie? Because let me tell you, I may not have witch powers but you don’t know me very well if you think you’ll be able to walk away from it unscathed.”

Stiles wasn’t even looking at Ethan—preferring to focus on changing his books instead—but there was no question to whom his ire was directed at.

Ethan was stunned for he had not considered the possibility that Aiden would have gotten to Stiles already. “W-What did you say?” he asked, voice wavering as he turned toward Stiles.

“You really had me too,” continued Stiles, still not looking at Ethan. “What with that whole story about how you and your brother ended up being expelled from your previous school? Except oh wow, you forgot to mention you were the one doing the bullying. Holy cow can we say plot twist! And that panic attack, brilliant execution by the way.”

There was so much sarcasm in Stiles words that Ethan flinched even though they were not true. Not to mention that Stiles had been so loud that they were beginning to garner people’s attention.

“Keep it low will ya?” Ethan stressed-whispered. “And it’s not like that, whatever my brother said to you is a lie. Trust me. He’s an ass and you know it.”

“Oh I know he’s an ass. But at least he never pretends not to be one.” Stiles retorted, closing his locker and finally facing Ethan. “And throwing your brother under the bus, real classy. Did you know that all he ever does at lunch is sing you praises? If you were at the Cafeteria more often you’d know that half the cafeteria is already tired of hearing how nice and smart you are from him. Tch, _that_ should have been my first clue that your story was bogus.”

Praises? Ethan could not believe his ears. Just for how long had Aiden been setting this up for??

“That’s just part of his ploy,” Ethan defended stepping closer to Stiles desperate for someone to be on his side. It just couldn’t be possible for Aiden to be able to discredit him so easily. “Everything that I told you is the truth, honest! Stiles, please, you got to believe me.”

“Alright then answer me this,” Stiles countered unyieldingly taking a step backwards. “Are you or are you not attracted to other guys?”

“Wha?” Ethan faltered.

“It’s a simple enough question. Do you or do you not bat for the same team?”

Ethan’s eyes darted around. Even though the rest of the students in the hall were pretending to mind their own business, Ethan felt with every fiber of his being that all of them were zeroing in on what his answer would be. And just like that he was transported to a year ago.

He could see himself coming out to only a couple of his closest friends. He remembered how it only took one day for the news about him to spread like wildfire throughout the entire school. The judging looks, the behind the hand comments that were muttered about him every time he walked by, the way his supposed friends would look the other way when the beatings started. The rope.

Even if he didn’t want to believe that his brother could be right, irrational fear took over. This scenario was all too similar, all too familiar. He started to back away even further from Stiles, shaking his head from side to side as he tried to refocus in the here and now. Yet the images proved to be way too hard to shake off.

“Well I’m glad we finally cleared that up,” Stiles said with spite, hitching his backpack over his shoulder as he began to walk away.

Ethan panicked and rushed to grab Stiles’ shoulder and turned him around. Stiles glared at him not speaking a word and Ethan couldn’t get any word out. His little stunt now had drawn every student’s attention to them and they were no longer bothering to mask it. Ethan tried to block them out but couldn’t. He was suffocating in their stares.

“Your hand is shaking,” commented Stiles lowly, observing the hand on his shoulder. He then turned his gaze to his surroundings as if now realizing the commotion they were making. “I have to go,” he said, gently removing the hand off his shoulder before turning away again. He gave Ethan one final side-glance as he rounded the corner before disappearing altogether.

\--___

Ethan was a no-show at lunch, though that was needless to point out.

Next class of the day was one he took with Stiles; except for reasons unexplained he wasn’t there. The following class was one he took with Aiden. Ethan thought about bailing out but he knew he had to face his brother sooner or later. He rationalized that it was better to do it now than when they were alone at home. Except that when he entered the classroom Aiden was nowhere to be found.

The vicious glare Isaac sent his way upon entering was hard to miss. So was Scott’s—though his looked more disappointed than angry.

Still, Aiden’s absence was beginning to bug him and so ten minutes into class he turned to Greenburg to ask if he knew where his brother was.

“Man you mean you haven’t heard?” whispered Greenburg back, looking quite thrilled about being the one to break the news to Ethan. “Your brother and Stilinski got into it at lunch. It was _epic_ man!” And at Ethan’s surprised expression Greenberg eagerly went on to elaborate. 

“See Stilinski suddenly walked to our table and asked to speak with Aiden. He must have confronted him about something because before anyone knew it they were on the floor throwing punches at each other. It took a couple of guys and McCall to separated them and last we saw of them they were sent to the principal’s office. We’re still waiting on word of what’s going to happen to them,” said Greenburg and then his eyes lit up as he remembered something. “Hey you’re buddies with Stilinski right? Any idea what he wanted with your brother?”

Ethan shook his head having no idea himself. He thanked Greenburg for the info and pretended to focus on class. Yet all he could think about was of how he needed to find out more.

\--__

He waited by the school’s entrance after the last bell rang. It wasn’t long before he spotted Aiden heading his way. Though when Aiden spotted him his face soured and he raced past Ethan without saying a word.

Ethan ran after him, telling him to wait up. “Aiden, stop. What happened at the principal’s office? I deserve to know!”

“I don’t want to talk about it!” Aiden yelled speeding to his bike only to shriek in anger when he saw the condition his bike was in. “What the holy fuck of hell man, what the hell!”

Aiden’s bike looked like someone taken a few practiced swings at it with a bat. It was wrecked. The front fender was bent, the chain guard busted, the heel plates destroyed, the upper side panels cracked and the rear mirrors broken. Not to mention the seat cowl was missing. Aiden fussed over his bike and swore bloody revenge; Ethan glanced around the parking lot until he spotted Erika looking directly at them. She gave him the middle finger before walking away and losing herself in the crowd.

It was easy to put two and two together then. After all, the blonde was the only one to ask for his plate number. To Erika messing with Stiles was probably the same as messing with her. Ethan wondered if he should at least count it as a small mercy that Erika left his bike untouched.

“Damn it I’m going to kill whoever did this!!” Aiden shouted kicking his bike in frustration.

One thing that Ethan knew for sure was that he was not about to snitch on her. He knew better than to tempt fate and he wasn’t sure his bike would escape unscathed a second time.

\--__

Aiden wasn’t very forthcoming with what the fight had been about. All Ethan was able to learn was that Aiden got off with detention for the rest of the week while Stiles earned himself a one-day suspension for being the “aggressor” in this scenario—which is just a word to say that Stiles was the one who antagonized Aiden first.

As visible bruises go all Ethan could see on Aiden was a nipped lip. And even though not a day had passed since Stiles threw their friendship out the window, Ethan hoped that he wasn’t worse for wear.

The twins didn’t speak to each other much after that—each preferring to be left alone to their own devices. Of course for Ethan that meant playing today’s events back and forth in his head and coming up with ways things could had been different.

It wasn’t until it was time to hit the hay that Ethan was finally able to muster up enough courage to grab his phone and call Danny. He waited until Aiden hit the shower to do so. The call went straight to voicemail. 

Ethan hung up and buried his face into his pillow, resisting the urge to scream into it. He did, however, punched his bed repeatedly to unleash his frustration.

Tiring out of it quickly, he turned his face sideways and stared at his phone hard and longingly before reaching for it again. Deep down Ethan knew Danny wasn’t the only one he needed to patch things up with.

- **Are u okay? I heard u got suspended for fighting with my brother and I wanted to make sure u were alright** -

After the text Ethan waited a whole 10 seconds before typing away more of what he had left unsaid.

- **I want u to know that I never lied to u** -

- **Despite what u think, I never played games** -

- **And I really do think of u as a friend. That wasn’t fake** -

He stared at the messages he sent and after a long minute he sent another one.

- **I messed up. I know that. Please answer back. I can explain**

Ethan stared at his phone without getting a response back until he heard the shower being shut off. Then he turned off the nightlight and pretended to be asleep. But not before sending out one last text message.

- **I’m sorry** -

\--__

- _Who are you really?_

That was the text Ethan had woken up to in the morning. The funny thing was that Ethan didn’t know how to answer that. Not because he didn’t understand the question but because some days he didn’t know the answer to that himself.

\--__

Stiles wasn’t at school today. No big surprise there because he was suspended. Aiden wasn’t in classes either. Again, that came as a no-brainer because Ethan already knew Aiden was going to spend his days in detention. Danny… Danny was avoiding Ethan like the plague and all Ethan could wonder was if Danny felt this shitty when Ethan was the one doing the avoiding.

Everybody else just pretended he didn’t exist. Nobody even looked his way. Except for Isaac. He always glared when he made eye contact with Ethan. And as far as Aiden’s friends went all they wanted to hear were the details leading up to Aiden’s detention. But seeing as Ethan didn’t have much to give away they generally left him alone.

Apparently the rest of the student body had already come to the conclusion that Ethan wasn’t much of a social butterfly and no longer bothered to hold a conversation with him. Guess being a twin could only make him interesting for so long.

At World History Ethan texted Danny asking him to stay after the lunch bell rang so that they could talk. Danny gave Ethan an onceover after reading the text but otherwise did nothing indicative to a response. However after the bell rang Danny put his books away like the rest of the students and marched his way to the door.

Only he stopped before exiting and waited for the rest of the students—plus teacher—to file out of the room before turning to Ethan.

“You have five minutes,” was all he said.

Ethan didn’t need to be told twice as he immediately rushed to stand before Danny, only stopping short of the goal when Danny raised his hand nonverbally telling Ethan to keep his distance.

Fair enough. At least Ethan was given a chance to speak and he would work with what he was given. And he would do so by getting right to the point. “Look, I don’t know what my brother told you about me, but whatever it is it isn’t true.” 

“So you weren’t expelled from your last school?” Danny questioned without missing a beat.

“Technically it was only my brother who got expelled. I just followed,” explained Ethan desperate to make the other understand.

“So Aiden was the one bullying people?”

“What? No, Aiden wasn’t bullying anyone.”

“Then why did he get expelled?” Danny asked, rapid firing one question after the other and leaving Ethan with little time to think. When Ethan wasn’t quick enough to come up with an answer Danny refused to ease up. “Why did your brother get expelled Ethan? Did homophobia have something to do with it? Is he the homophobe?”

“No-Yes-I mean, I mean yes homophobia had something to do with it but it isn’t how you think. Aiden isn’t a homophobe.”

“What, so he’s pro-gay now? Is that what you’re saying? If so then it would make a lot of sense for him to warn me about you, wouldn’t it?” Danny upheld leaving Ethan momentarily stumped. “Come on Ethan, you’re not making a lot of sense. What did Aiden do? Why did he get expelled if he wasn’t the one bullying? Why is he-”

“Because he was defending me that’s why!!” exclaimed Ethan tired of being assaulted with question after question. “Some of my classmates where out to get me and Aiden stepped in to stop them. They fought. Aiden got expelled. End of story,” Ethan stated, breathing hard.

Danny stayed quite for a brief moment as he examined the other teen. But yet one piece of the puzzle still didn’t fit. “And what does that have to do with homophobia?” he asked, quick to notice how Ethan looked spooked by the question. “You just finished confirming to me that homophobia had something to do with it so. What was it?” and when Ethan wasn’t immediately forthcoming with the information, Danny narrowed his eyes. “Why were the other kids targeting you?”

Ethan looked like a deer in the headlights. On one hand he wanted Danny to understand that Ethan wasn’t playing with him. On the other hand answering that question honestly meant revealing himself and Ethan wasn’t quite ready to do that. Coming out of the closet was nowhere within the goals Ethan had set out to reach.

And it was this hesitation that proved to be too much for Danny.

“You know what, forget it,” he said brushing past Ethan. “If you wanted to convince me of something then at least put a little more effort into your lies. Otherwise I’m done here.”

“But Danny, wait-”

“Your five minutes are up.”

\--__

One step forward, two steps backwards. Pretty much Ethan’s life story in a nutshell. How was he going to fix things when he couldn’t even deal with himself?

He had royally messed up yesterday. As much as he would like to put all the blame on Aiden, Ethan knew that he himself had not handle things any better. If what just happened today served as any indication, fear gripped him at every choice or action he took. Paralyzing him. His inability to move on from the past was the real reason Ethan kept getting himself into this type of shit.

Ethan knew that. He was well aware of the fact that he was one big walking contradiction. How else could he explain the fact that he wanted to be with Danny yet at the same time refused to share anything with him?

_It was all so fucking frustrating!_

Letting out an aggravated scream, Ethan flung his half-empty water bottle across the field and growled in irritation when it didn’t make a big splash when it hit the ground. “Fuck you!” he shouted after it, kicking the dirt off the ground as he vented.

“Am I interrupting?”

Ethan almost lost his balance as he whirled around with widen eyes as he watched Boyd of all people settled himself on a bleacher higher than the one Ethan had been occupying. Ethan’s eyes darted around to see if he could spot anyone else before settling back on Boyd—still thrown by the other’s presence.

“W-What are you doing here?” Ethan asked perplexed.

“Eating,” Boyd replied blankly, holding his brown bag up in full display in case Ethan had missed it. The response all but appeased Ethan who gave Boyd a narrowed glare.

“Don’t give me that, you know what I’m asking,” Ethan retorted making it clear that he had no room for nonsense. He wanted a proper answer. “Why. Are. You. Here?”

Boyd shrugged looking completely unimpressed by Ethan’s show of command, but answered nonetheless. “Erika mentioned that you spent your lunch hour here. I was curious to see what the appeal was. Though so far I don’t understand why would anyone trade AC for a heatstroke. So much for nearing sweater weather.”

Was Ethan hearing what he thought he was hearing? It sounded awfully close to an excuse for company. “Did you actually miss me not going to the library?” Ethan asked sounding incredibly flabbergasted by that revelation. He became even more astounded when Boyd didn’t immediately rebuff it. “But wait, I thought you didn’t like me very much.”

Boyd shrugged again like if the subject didn’t have anything to do with him. “That’s just your impression,” Boyd excused, unwrapping his food at a leisure pace. “Though for some reason Erika also believes that I’m not very good at making friends.”

“I’d say,” replied Ethan, still hardly believing what he was witnessing. He almost wanted to laugh at the situation.

“From what I’ve heard your name isn’t exactly first on everyone’s Christmas list either,” Boyd countered feeling a little defensive toward Ethan’s incredulity. 

Ethan remained unfazed however. In fact he was finding it increasingly hard to keep the smile off his face. “So you missing me pretty much gives away the fact that you like me,” Ethan proclaimed enthused. “Man is Stiles going to be jealous when he hears about it! He has been trying to befriend you since forever!”

And just like that Ethan’s spirit plummeted. Because what good was gaining a potential friend if he was going to end up losing him anyways. Ethan had already been down this road before with both Danny and Stiles. Heck even Scott and, to a smaller degree, Isaac. What hopes did Ethan have of keeping his friends if he couldn’t be 100% real with them? He just couldn’t let himself to keep walking down the same path.

“I’m gay.”

Boyd only paused for a nanosecond before taking a bite of his beef jerky sandwich. He chewed his food painstakingly slow—in Ethan’s perspective—and then when he swallowed it Boyd took yet another bite of his sandwich and repeated the process. Ethan couldn’t take the silence anymore. He didn’t know what had possessed him to reveal his secret so abruptly like that but now that he had he felt like he was going to drown in anxiety if he didn’t get a reaction soon.

“D-Didn’t you hear me? I just told you that I’m g-gay,”

“And I’m black,” Boyd answered back looking at Ethan with clear indifference. “Your point?”

Ethan blinked, he didn’t know what he imagined Boyd’s reaction would be like but at the very least he expected Boyd to make a face. “Doesn’t it b-bother you?” he asked while internally chiding himself for stammering yet again. What’s up with that? Jesus, enough is enough! He needed to stop speaking like he had a dick in his mouth!

…If only.

“You planning to come on to me?” Boyd questioned making Ethan shake his head in the negative. “Then we’re cool,” he answered nonchalantly like if it was no big deal. “Now are you going to let me eat in peace or is there anything else you want to get off your chest?” Boyd asked clearly wanting to be done with this conversation.

Ethan pretended to think it over before settling on one of his proudest accomplishments. “I can twerk better than Miley Cyrus,” he stated confidently.

Boyd offered no response.

\--__

- **Im gay** -

- _And what are u gonna be tomorrow?_ -

- **I dont understand**

- _Are u gonna be gay tomorrow or are u going back to being notgay_ -

- _What about ur brother?_ -

- _Are u going to be our friend only to pretend u don’t know us when hes around?_ -

- **Aiden doesn’t have to know** -

- _Not good enough_ -

- _I cant be friends with 2 different Ethans_ -

- **Stiles, thats not fair** -

- _Pick which Ethan u are gonna be and stick to it_ -

- _Call me when u made ur choice_ -

- _Or you know, don’t_ -

\--__

Friday, the day of Ethan’s trigonometry test. It was kinda mind-blowing to think that he had started this week on such a high only to end it on such a low.

On Monday he had studied at Stiles’ house after having a heart to heart with Danny. On Tuesday Scott had invited him to his lunch table and they had even promised to teach Ethan how to play lacrosse. But then Wednesday happened and everything went to shit. At least he hadn’t been entirely friendless on Thursday.

Still, it was a shame to come off this rollercoaster ride of a week beaten. Shit, Ethan needed to stop thinking about it before he depressed himself even further. He needed to at least keep himself together until his test, and that was the second-to-last class of the day.

Easier said than done though.

Stiles had returned to school today. Even though Ethan only caught a glimpse of him as Stiles was immediately surrounded by his friends, it was enough to catch the bruised cheek on the left side of Stiles’ face. Apparently it was too much to ask for Aiden to go easy on anyone.

Apart from that Ethan went through his morning classes without much fuzz even though it still stung that Danny and the others went through their day doing their very best to avoid looking his way. Well, apart from Lydia who smirked his way in AP English. The action actually chilled his spine more than it comforted him. To him Lydia was ominous like that.

When the bell rang Ethan sighed. On the plus side now that he and Boyd where back on speaking terms at least he didn’t have to eat his lunch alone.

If only Aiden hadn’t been waiting for him by the door.

“You’re sitting with me today.”

That was what Aiden demanded once he blocked Ethan’s route to the library. There were no ands, ifs or buts. Aiden was tired of Ethan choosing to be either alone or with losers. He was tired of always making up excuses for his brother. Aiden kept away for a day so that Ethan could cool off but enough was enough. Even if Ethan wasn’t willing, Aiden would force him to live a normal high school life. Even if he had to babysit Ethan every step of the way from now on.

“I already told the guys that you were sitting with us so _don’t_ embarrass me.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then I’ll take it out on Danny. Don’t think I won’t.”

\--__

To say that Ethan was surprised when Lydia sat between them was an understatement. And the way Aiden and Lydia were so blatantly flirting with each other did nothing to alleviate Ethan’s already turbulent emotions at being coerced to stay there.

Wasn’t Lydia supposed to be Stiles’ friend? What kind of person chooses to sit with the opposing party the day her friend is most probably relying on her support? Where was the loyalty in that? Secondhand anger quickly built up inside Ethan at the sickening display of betrayal.

Suddenly Lydia accidentally knocked down her drink and everyone near the spill were quick to throw in their napkins together to stop the mess from spreading.

“Sorry, I’m such a klutz these days,” Lydia excused before turning her doe eyes toward Aiden. “You wouldn’t mind fetching me another ice tea would you?”

Aiden grinned at her suggestively before getting up. “Alright, but you’re making it up to me later.” His lecherous comment wasn’t missed by anyone on the table who hooted and hollered after him.

“Some friend you are,” Ethan muttered under his breath causing Lydia to turn toward him with a self-satisfied smirk.

“Oh Ethan,” she pitied while taking out her compact mirror to check her hair. “I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she spoke distractedly, giving herself an approving wink before closing her mirror. She leaned closer to Ethan and muttered so that only he could hear. “I didn’t spread your little secret did I? I think that makes me a _very_ good friend.”

Was Lydia trying to intimidate him? Her pleased expression did nothing more than to anger him further. He wasn’t going to let himself be bullied by her. “Don’t play innocent with me. Why are you here sitting next to Aiden after what he did to Stiles?” Ethan shot back between clenched teeth.

Lydia tilted her head to the side and batted her eyelashes as if the question confused her. “What do you mean? I thought I was sitting next to you.”

Now it was Ethan’s turn to be confused. “What are you talking about?”

The smirk presented itself on Lydia’s glossed lips again as she retreated back to her seat. “Let’s just say I got tired of watching you dumb boys make a mess of everything from the sidelines.” And before Ethan could counter with anything else Lydia posed one more question of her own. “Tell me Ethan, for how much longer are you going to let the weights pull you down? Don’t you think it’s about time to lift them?”

“Lift what?” Aiden asked as he sat down and handed Lydia her drink. He eyed his brother suspiciously, wondering what got him looking so stumped.

“Weights,” Lydia answered casually, accepting her drink. “If you look closely Ethan’s biceps are bigger than yours. I was just wondering his secret.”

“Tsk, as if!” Aiden scoffed flexing his arms for Lydia and the rest of the table. “These puppies are second to no one!”

The girls at the table laughed as the rest of the guys booed Aiden, flexing their own arms in the process. Lydia only rolled her eyes at the testosterone competition. Aiden threw some rude comments at the other guys before draping an arm over Lydia’s shoulders.

“I’m so glad you smartened up and ditched those losers,” said Aiden, taking a sip of his own drink.

“Well I couldn’t leave Allison alone with them. Girls need to look out for each other you know,” Lydia explained flirtatiously fixing Aiden’s hair, though it was just a ploy to get his arm off of her without him noticing. “But should you be calling them losers? Ethan is their honorary member after all,” she questioned and it delivered quite the punch to Ethan’s gut.

Aiden scrunched his face in distaste. “Not anymore he’s not. _Right_ Ethan?” he stated more than asked staring directly at his brother. Lydia also turned to see what Ethan’s answer would be, one eyebrow raised.

Ethan locked eyes with her before slowing staring back at Aiden. “They are _not_ losers.”

Aiden looked like he wanted to retort with something but Lydia quickly interrupted it by addressing Heather from across the table. “Hey weren’t you going to host a couple’s party this Saturday?” And Heather immediately jumped onboard now that someone mentioned it because it gave her the opportunity to talk about it.

“In my dad’s house at nine. He’s away for the weekend so no supervision. Are you and Aiden coming? The more the merrier,” she asked eager to get people to come. It was her first party in which her birthday wasn’t the occasion so she wanted it to be a success. Aiden immediately agreed, boasting how he was going to have the hottest girlfriend there. And then Heather turned toward Ethan trying to bag another one. “And what about you?”

“Me?” Ethan asked being caught off guard.

“Yeah,” Heather affirmed. “If you’re single, don’t worry. I have friend who’s single too. If you want I can hook you up. She’s really pretty,” she pitched hoping that would make her case only to have Greenberg bellyached beside her.

“Hey! How come you didn’t make me the same offer when I said I didn’t have anyone?” he complained and was ignored by everyone.

“Ask Coach Finstock then,” Heather dismissed before turning her attention back to Ethan. “So, what do you say?”

Ethan opened and closed his mouth, feeling nervous. “I don’t think I can make it,” he answered finally to which Aiden quickly replied with a “sure you can!” Ethan stared at his brother but it was clear Aiden wasn’t relenting. Ethan turned back to Heather and excused himself again. “Sorry, but I really can’t?”

“Why not?” asked Heather again ignoring how Greenberg was arguing that he was available. “If it because you haven’t seen her I can show you a picture. Here, let me look on my phone,” she insisted.

But again Ethan declined. “I’m sure she looks lovely but I can’t?”

“How come?” asked a jock at their table. Aiden mimicked the question. “Yeah Ethan, how come?”

“Because no matter what the girl looks like she won’t be my type!” Ethan snapped at Aiden, glaring at the table. Silence reigned supreme as Ethan felt a hand land over his under the table. He realized it was Lydia’s. He turned his gaze toward her but her eyes where more focused on Heather. Still, she squeezed his hand.

Was that her version of moral support? Ethan wanted to laugh then. So she wanted him to lift the weights for himself, huh? How strangely comforting to know that even though she singlehandedly pushed things to this point, she wasn’t going to provide the final shove. The ultimate choice would be entirely up to him.

“Listen Ethan-” Aiden started to warn but was cut off by Ethan standing up.

“No you listen,” Ethan shot back. “I’m tired of playing by your rules,” he stated before turning to Heather. “I’m sorry but I’m going to have to take a raincheck on your party. Maybe another time.”

And with that he left, not being able to stay there for another minute.

“Ethan!” Aiden shouted after him, also standing up to give chase. “Ethan I said wait up!” he commanded and managed to grab his bother’s arm only for Ethan to turn around and shove him away.

“Get off Aiden, I’m not in the mood!” Ethan snarled before trying to make his way out of the cafeteria again.

Aiden wasn’t having it though. “Then get in the mood!” he barked as he aggressively pushed Ethan by his back making his brother stumble until he was able to catch his footing.

Adrenaline kicking in Ethan whiled toward his twin. “You want to get violent?” Ethan asked getting into Aiden’s personal space and shoving him back. His brother responded in kind.

“What I want is for you to stop acting like an asshole and for once in your life do what’s better for you!” Aiden yelled back. Needless to say the constant shoving between them attracted the attention of many of their fellow students who were slowly but surely making a circle around them.

Because in high school what could possibly be more entertaining than seeing twins duking it out?

Noticing the crowd they were gathering Ethan clenched his fists at his sides and tried to dial himself down. Of course that didn’t mean that there wasn’t anger in his voice when he addressed his brother again. “Wrong,” he stated. “What you want is for me to do whatever _you_ think is better.”

“And is that so wrong?!” Aiden countered. “Dammit Ethan! All you had to do was agree to go on one fucking date like a normal person with some random girl you probably won’t see again and call it a fucking night! Why is that so fucking hard for you?”

“Because no matter how much you wish it or try to force me, I’m never gonna be interested!”

“Then fucking fake it! It’s not rocket science!” Aiden argued getting fed up. He clenched his fists in front of him which got the students to start chanting _fight, fight fight!_ “All I do is try to fucking protect you and this is the thanks I get?” he asked gesturing around them. “We are twins!!” he stressed. “Why can’t you fucking pretend to be like me for two fucking seconds?!” he asked enraged.

“Because I’m not you and I’m never going to be like you!!” Ethan shot back. “And you know why???” Ethan questioned ignoring the alarmed _don’t_ Aiden shot his way. “Because I’m gay!!” he shouted to the collective gasps of everybody—which just ticked Ethan off even more. “Yeah you all heard me!” he exclaimed spinning around so that everyone could listen. “I’m a fucking homo!” and then his eyes landed on Danny who just broke through the crowd only stop short at seeing Ethan at the center of the commotion. 

“I’m gay,” Ethan repeated one last time before turning to Aiden who was petrified on his spot, reminiscent of how Ethan himself had been when Stiles found out about him.

Stiles… he had been right. Ethan needed to stop letting his past hold him down. He needed to stand up for himself and start acting like the big brother he was supposed to be.

“Aiden,” Ethan started, walking near his brother. “I know that nothing of what has happened to us in the last year has been fair to you. And for that I’m sorry,” Ethan said, apologizing. “I should have never tried to leave you on your own to deal with my problems, and I’m sorry I made you feel like you had to be responsible for me.”

“I can’t believe you said that,” Aiden whispered, barely able to regain his voice before getting angry again. “We had a deal Ethan! You can’t, you can’t-”

“I _know_ Aiden,” Ethan stated when his brother couldn’t get the words out. “But I can’t do that anymore,” Ethan asserted looking mournfully at his twin. “Listen, you are my younger brother. _I’m_ the one who’s supposed to look out for you, not the other way around.”

“Yeah right, a heck of a job you’ve been doing there!” was Aiden’s swift reproach. “My life has been hell because of you.”

And there it was, the resentment Ethan was sure his bother harbored in full display. Being proved right about it didn’t make Ethan feel any better. “I realize I haven’t been doing a great job of it as of late. That’s why all I’m asking from you is to only worry about yourself from now on and let me do me.”

“Sure, because that worked so great before!” remarked Aiden sarcastically. “But fine! Do you. Just don’t come crying to me when you find that you can’t handle it! I’m through with bailing you out.”

“Aiden I-”

“Sometimes I wish that I was never born a twin. Life would have been a lot easier then.”

Many students oohed at that and Aiden partially realized that he might have crossed the line there. But he was just so angry with Ethan for screwing everything up that he refused to apologize for it. Whatever Ethan had been about to say Aiden would probably never know as Ethan closed his mouth and nodded while retreating backwards. The stunned-to-silence students broke the circle to allow Ethan to dash past them.

“That was harsh bro,” mumbled Greenberg somewhere behind Aiden.

Aiden never wanted to break someone’s jaw so much.

\--__

“Ethan!” someone called after him as Ethan escaped through the empty school hallways. He ignored it as he reached the back-exit of the building and ran to what had been his one place of solace in the entire school. He made it to the middle of the lacrosse field before he was grabbed by the shoulder, spun around and pulled into a hug. “I’m sorry,” Danny muttered out of breath as he held Ethan to him.

Ethan buried his face in Danny’s neck and shook his head. He didn’t return the hug. Just stood still, trying to hide from the world.

“Not your fault,” Ethan mumbled against the collar of Danny’s shirt. “I’m the one who kept the truth from you.”

Danny shook his head. “No it’s mine.” His right hand drew soothing circles on Ethan’s back as he got his apology in order. “I should have given you a chance to explain. God knows I wanted to.”

“Lot of good that would have done,” Ethan jibed. “It’s not like was going to own up to anything… I did nothing but lie.”

“Still,” Danny objected. “I was supposed to be your friend. I feel like I shouldn’t have turned on you the first chance I got.”

“You’re right,” Ethan agreed. “You’re a shitty human being and you deserve no love.”

Danny loosened his hold on Ethan but Ethan immediately reacted by snaking his arms under Danny’s and pulling him closer by the back of his shoulders. Ethan wasn’t ready face anyone in the eye just yet. Danny smiled at Ethan’s action and tightened his hold on him again. 

“I guess I deserved that,” said Danny, caressing the short hairs on the back of Ethan’s neck with his left hand before delving further up to lightly pat him on the head. “It’s just that as long as I’ve known you I always felt like you were keeping me at arm’s length. As if you were hiding something from me. When your brother came and finally gave me an explanation for all of it I dived head in and believed it. I should have known better.”

“Honestly Danny you need to stop it,” Ethan griped with no small amount of bite. “If anyone’s the fuckup it’s me! I’m the one who was too scared to come out of the closet. I’m the one who was ashamed and tried to hide the fact that you and I were friends because of what my brother would think. I’m the one that didn’t follow up the confession of you liking me by admitting that I dreamed about cumming in your dimples.”

Danny’s face colored at that. “You dream about that?” he asked softly; gently carding his fingers in Ethan’s hair. 

“Only twice,” Ethan murmured after a slight moment of hesitation. “Please pretend you didn’t hear that,” he pleaded quickly afterward.

When Danny tried to pull away Ethan instantly latched harder onto him, burying his face even further in Danny’s shirt. “I just want to see you,” explained Danny placing his hands on Ethan’s shoulders. After putting up a bit more of his initial resistance, Ethan finally allowed himself to be pushed back a step—though he kept his head bowed.

Danny’s right hand soon caressed the side of Ethan’s face with the back of his fingers before placing both palms on Ethan’s cheeks and guiding his face upward to place a kiss on his forehead. Ethan looked up to Danny then, connecting their gazes in a silent question.

Ethan’s eyes were blotched, his nose reddened and his lower lip wouldn’t stop trembling. And to Danny that didn’t make Ethan any less attractive. And to prove it he leaned down and sealed their mouths together.

The kiss is tentative, unsure in its force, and when Danny backed away a couple of inches to ask if that was okay Ethan brought his hand up to cup the nape of Danny’s neck and urged him closer until the distance between them was eliminated once again.

It only took a mere second before Ethan had both arms wrapped over Danny’s shoulders pressing harder against Danny’s lips. There was a hint of teeth at first, not to mention how their noses bumped, but they made it work nonetheless

The need to breathe was the only thing that separated them; and once they did they smiled at each other’s flustered faces.

“And to think I never put together that the reason you always looked so flushed around me was because you were having wet dreams about me,” commented Danny with a chuckle.

“Shut up,” Ethan mumbled resting his chin over Danny’s shoulder so that he wouldn’t have to see Danny’s cocky smile. Ethan was sexually frustrated, so what? No reason to rub it in. “It’s not like you don’t do the same,” he grumbled halfheartedly. 

“Hmm,” Danny consented distractedly as something else caught his attention. “As much as I would like to discuss the percentage of accuracy in that statement, we’ll have to save it for later because I think we have company.”

Ethan was about to ask what Danny meant 'til Danny spun them half-circle so that Ethan could witness it for himself. Over Danny’s shoulder Ethan saw Stiles, Scott and Allison making their way toward them with Lydia trailing not far behind in her high heels. And as if that wasn’t enough he spotted both Erica and Isaac by the bleachers hauling Boyd into the field by the wrists.

Danny felt his muscles whining by how much tighter Ethan started to squeeze himself against him. Danny tried to extricate himself from Ethan’s grip but Ethan just held on tighter leaving Danny to sigh and hug him closer instead. The boy was nervous so he wouldn’t fault him for it.

It was Stiles who said the first word after he got close enough. “Fancy meeting you here Danny,” he greeted although his attention was solely on the other teen. “Ethan.”

“Hi,” Danny waved, lifting a hand in greeting as he couldn’t exactly turn around at the moment.

Ethan however could only focus on the dark purple bruise framing the entire area under Stiles’ left eye—the fact that said eye was squinted only added to the damage. And all Ethan could think about was that it was entirely his fault.

“Your face,” he pointed out despondently.

“We can’t all look picture perfect under this kind of lighting,” joked Stiles. “But you should see me directly under a yellow light. I’m gorge! As in handsomely gorgeous. Manly gorgeous. With testosterone and stuff. Back me up Scott.”

“Manly, definitely,” Scott complied with an amused grin.

“See? An opinion doesn’t get more unbiased than that,” declared Stiles proudly, sure that he had made his case with Scott’s testimony. After all who would question the credibility of his best friend?

Ethan’s eyes strayed to Scott briefly before focusing back on Stiles. Ethan felt like his heart was going to beat its way out of his chest with how hard it was pounding. Everyone being here was just too surreal for Ethan that he was still having a hard time believing any of this was happening. Why was no one looking at him with judgment in their eyes? Why wasn’t anyone making him the butt of their jokes? Weren’t they mad at him? He had been lying to them since the day he set foot on their school. Ethan didn’t understand any of it and it made him feel caged.

“Why are you here?” Ethan asked, wary of their intentions.

Stiles blinked at that, and his expression showed that he thought that was a stupid question. “Dude! What do ya mean why we’re here? Are you like too in shocked with yourself or did your brain not registered what happened just 5 minutes ago?” Stiles asked perplexed. “Everyone in school is talking about you!” Stiles stated—ignoring the warning in Danny’s voice when he called his name. 

“No listen,” Stiles continued. “No one can stop talking about what happened in the cafeteria and I just think it was the coolest thing ever. You handled yourself like a pro! Dude, you’re practically my new favorite person,” announced Stiles—unintentionally perturbing Scott.

“Hey, I thought _I_ was your favorite person,” complained Scott feeling slighted.

“This is not about you buddy,” replied Stiles at the same time that Allison said “I thought Lydia was his favorite person?”

“I’m just his unattainable crush; his fairytale ending if you will,” corrected Lydia coolly. “I transcend favoritism.”

“Then what am I?” questioned Scott at a lost—turning his puppy eyes at anyone who could answer him. He was genuinely concerned about his status in Stiles’ life and he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he resolved it.

“You’re my brother, alright?” replied Stiles which apparently was the correct thing to say because Scott was practically glowing now. “ _Anyways_ ,” Stiles started, putting an end to that tangent and drawing the conversation back to the point he was trying to make. “What I’m trying to say is that now that you’re notoriously known by the student body, it’s only natural that you hang out with other infamously notorious misfits such as yourself. Namely us. Really. You won’t believe our credentials. So, you know, welcome to the group and yada yada yada. We cool?”

After Stiles asked that question he was met with nothing but silence.

“Um, guys?” Danny called, signaling for them to get closer with a tilt of his head. Ethan’s face wasn’t viewable as he was hiding it between his arms and the crook of Danny’s neck. Yet everyone would have to be blind to not see the way Ethan’s shoulders were shaking.

“Is he-” began to ask Stiles, receiving an affirmative nod from Danny. “Ethan, buddy. Are you _crying_?” he asked in disbelieve.

“Am not,” replied Ethan defensively though the crack in his voice betrayed him completely. The sob that followed sobered everybody up.

Coming out of the closet can be a very difficult process—it’s often an emotionally demanding experience. Much more when you had to go through with it twice in your life. It’s a road that requires you to fully accept yourself for who you are before you’re ready to ever share yourself with the rest of the world.

Ethan had come to that point once in his life but instead of feeling liberated he was forced to hide inside a bigger cage. So ill-received was the first time for him that he hid himself behind much stronger barriers. Barriers that included his twin brother. And having already experienced the backlash of opening the door to his cage once, Ethan wasn’t sure that he would ever be able to do it again on such a scale.

But now that the adrenaline rush had left him, he was beginning to come to terms with the aftermath of his actions. An aftermath that somehow included the acceptance of the few people that had began to matter to him. So really, the choice of breaking down was so far beyond his control now.

He never felt more relieved in his life. This was literally a dream that he never wanted to wake up from.

“I’m sorry,” Ethan muttered finally releasing Danny and creating some distance by taking three step backwards. He continued as he rubbed the heel of hands against his redden eyes to keep tears from falling. “I just, didn’t think any of this was possible. That’s why… that’s why you guys scared me so much at first. Even after you guys found out I was gay you were still nice to me. And I couldn’t justify it.”

He sniffed here but kept battling through it. “I thought you were all weird,” he said looking at Stiles, “or had a hidden agenda,” he explained looking at Lydia, “or plain freaks like me,” he pointed out glancing at Danny. “But you aren’t, you didn’t. You are just genuinely good people and I’m sorry it took me so long to realize that you guys aren’t the exception. You’re the example and I’m so glad to have gotten to meet every one of you. And it would really mean a lot to me if you guys let me call you my friends.”

Allison, who admittedly was the one who least knew Ethan, was feeling her heart break—so she didn’t even want to think about what the others were feeling right now. Surprisingly or not, it was her boyfriend who best defined what the situation called for.

“Group hug!” yelled Scott loudly as he launched himself toward the Danny and Ethan—eagerly extending his arms to wrap them around the pair. 

“Oh what the heck,” exclaimed Stiles and he joined his best friend.

“Don’t leave me out!” Isaac whined as he circled the group looking for permission to join the hug. Permission that was granted when Scott lifted one arm to make space for Isaac.

“What do you know,” Lydia voiced as she took a picture of them with her iphone. “A real-life meat sandwich before our very eyes.”

“Does that make us the bread?” Allison asked as she skipped to the other side of Scott to join in on the fun. Lydia walked toward them at a more leisured pace and stood next to Stiles—only providing her support by extending a well-manicured hand and letting that be the only contact between her and the group.

Erica gave Boyd a playful glance but Boyd only shook his head, side-eyeing the group. “I’m fine where I am,” he stated leaving no room for discussion.

“Fine, suit yourself,” replied Erica as she approached the group and whispered something to them. Boyd didn’t have enough time to react as the whole group suddenly rushed at him and tackled him to the ground. Erica’s mischievous laughter being the loudest sound ringing through his ears.

Boyd wanted to cuss them out but stopped on the count that he could hear Ethan’s choked laughter as well. However if Erica thought he was still dressing as Bane for her Batman theme this Halloween she had another thing coming. He was going as motherfucking Green Lantern now and no one would tell him different.

\--__

The atmosphere at school had definitely changed ever since Ethan oh so publicly outed himself in the cafeteria. Now wherever he walked he could hear his fellow students whispering things about him. Plus people stared no matter with whom he interacted. Normally this was enough to make Ethan feel insecure about himself—or it would be if it wasn’t for one major detail.

He was never alone.

Ethan walked to most of his classes with either Danny or Stiles and spent his free period with Boyd. He had formed some sort of friendly rivalry with Isaac where they competed against each other on anything during Gym class; and became Scott’s regular seating partner in Chemistry class seeing as Scott rarely got his work done whenever he sat with either Allison or Isaac.

So really, Ethan had no time to worry about what other people thought of him because he was too busy enjoying his life.

And yeah, you probably guessed it by now but so far there had been no progress made in Aiden’s front. Ethan would like to say that no love was lost there but that would be a lie. Ethan wanted nothing more than to fix his relationship with his brother but knew it would take some time until Aiden was ready to let go of his resentment.

Who knew, maybe spending some time apart was exactly what the doctor prescribed. Maybe they both needed their space to grow into themselves before they could reestablish a close bond again. If anything at least the time apart would help people to stop seeing them as a package deal and maybe start seeing them as the two completely different individuals that they were.

All Ethan really knew was that if Aiden ever needed him again he would not fail to perform his duties as the older brother of the two. Never again.

“Orange is really not your color,” Lydia stated, making a face at Ethan’s shirt as he sat at their lunch table.

“But I kinda like this shirt,” Ethan mumbled as he looked down at his outfit. “Is it really that offensive?”

“Oh for the love of god Lydia!” said Stiles around a mouth stuffed with curly fries. “You’re not allowed to tell a guy how to dress unless he is your boyfriend. It’s like Dating 101 or something.”

Isaac laughed. “And you would know?” he asked making Stiles reply with a single use of his middle finger.

“Hmm,” Lydia began, contemplating it. “So by that logic you’d let me change your entire wardrobe if we dated. Tempting.”

“I would let you do a lot more if you went out with me,” Stiles stated wistfully making Isaac laugh again.

“Shit man, I think you just lost your testicles,” he joked. “Do you need help finding them?”

“Alright,” Lydia compromised. “Pick me up at my house at 4:00 and we’ll drive to the mall. Bring your debit card.”

Stiles blinked, carefully putting the curly fries in his hand down. “You mean you…” he started, looking at everybody in the table in shock before a huge grin plastered itself on his face. “I’m the king of the world!!” he shouted pumping his fist in the air as he stood up on his chair. Lydia was already covering her face in embarrassment.

Ethan laughed, happy at his friend’s joy when felt a finger tapping his shoulder. He turned his head and spotted Danny signaling with a tilt of his head for Ethan to follow him. Ethan smiled and took a huge bite of his BLT burger before following after Danny.

“Sure you didn’t want to finish your burger first?” asked Danny once Ethan met him by the lockers.

“Nah, it was cold anyways,” said Ethan, joining Danny by leaning his back against the lockers—close enough so that their arms were touching. “So you wanted to talk to me?”

“Yeah… well, about that,” Danny began, idly scratching behind his ear. “I guess I just wanted to ask how you were holding up and everything. I know it ain’t particularly easy being everybody’s flavor of the week. _Specially_ if you weren’t eased on to it. I mean, I can’t actually do anything about what people say but you know I have your back right?” 

A sad smile appeared on Ethan’s features as he rested the side of his head on Danny’s shoulder. “I know… but I’m doing fine, honestly. And it’s not like I’m being bullied or anything. Just highly gossiped about.”

Danny hummed his understanding and Ethan’s lips broke into a real smile because as much as he enjoyed Stiles’ loud support and the antics of the rest of his friends, Ethan really appreciated these little moments of quiet comfort with Danny. He felt really blessed to be there right now.

“Oh, before I forget!” Ethan continued, pulling away from the lockers to stand in front of Danny—planting both hands at either side of Danny to trap him between himself and the lockers. Danny only raised an eyebrow at Ethan’s actions. “Erika is being very persistent about me dressing up as the Riddler for Halloween. And she’s been kinda twisting my arm all week to ask you to come as Two-Face.”

“Really now?” Danny asked, amused.

“Mhm,” Ethan nodded. “I know you two don’t usually talk much, but she’s really set on this Batman theme. She even offered to do your make up if you said yes. And it’s not only us; Scott is going as Robin because for some weird reason he really wanted to wear tights, Allison is going as Batgirl, Isaac is the Joker, and Lydia as Poison Ivy because she strongly believes that redheads should be represented by actual redheads. So… be my Two-Face?”

“Yours?” Danny questioned, looking sideways before pecking Ethan on the nose. “Done deal then.”

Ethan blushed but returned Danny’s gesture by quickly pecking him on the lips. “Alright!” Ethan declared. “Now let’s go back to the cafeteria before Stiles starts thinking that we pulled a Scott on him.”

As he said that he intertwined his fingers with Danny’s and pulled him down the hall. Danny looked at their joined hands when Ethan didn’t let go and asked him if he really was okay with this. Danny didn’t want to pressure Ethan into doing anything he wasn’t ready for.

“I don’t know if I’m ever going to feel ready,” revealed Ethan, squeezing Danny’s hand. “But I’ve decided to stop letting things weight me down. I mean look at these guns, I lift weights; it’s not the other way around!” Ethan joked, earning a chuckle from the other. “Besides,” he continued. “Just because I don’t enjoy the attention it don’t mean I’m plan to flake on my duties as your boyfriend. Gotta show the world that my man is taken so they don’t get ideas about stealing you away.”

“As if they could,” agreed Danny, squeezing Ethan’s hand in return before leading them back to their friends.

It was kinda funny really. For so long Ethan had viewed Danny as his illicit, kind of tortured romance that could never happen and now here he was—ready to face the world with Danny at his side. Endings don’t get more wonderful than that.

Or so he thought.

\--__

That Halloween while the whole gang was partying it up at the club in their costumes, Aiden surprised everyone by showing up dressed up as their missing Bane. 

“Got room for one more?” he asked once he made his way to the group and was received with a chorus of yeses.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this fic I came to realize two things: 1) We really don't don't much about Danny, and 2) Scott is literally the perfect human being like OMG why did it took me so long to realize it???


End file.
